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7 



MEISTER ECKEHART 



BY 

Sister ODILIA FUNKE, A. M. 

OF THE 

Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur, Belgium 



a dissertation 

Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University 

of America in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements 

for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy 




WASHINGTON, D. C. 
JUNE, 1916 



MEISTER ECKEHART 



BY 

Sister ODILIA FUNKE, A. M. 

OF THE 

Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur, Belgium 



a dissertation 

Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University 

of America in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements 

for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
JUNE, 1916 



By Transfer 

OCT 7 W 6 



376 r 



NATIONAL CAPITAL PRESS, INC., WASHINGTON, D. 0. 



The writer wishes to make grateful acknowledgment to 
Bev. Nicholas A. Weber, S.T.D., Kev. William Turner, 
S.T.D., Eev. Charles A. Dubray, Ph.D., for their kind 
assistance given in the preparation of this dissertation; 
to the Eev. Paulist Fathers of Washington, D. C, for 
rendering their library available, especially those original 
works without which this dissertation could not have been 
written ; and to other friends who have been generous in 
encouragement and advice. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/meistereckehartOOfunk 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 7 

CHAPTER I 

The Life of Meister Eckehart 11 

CHAPTER II 

Meister Eckehart and the Inquisition 24 

CHAPTER III 

The Works of Meister Eckehart 31 

CHAPTER IV 

The Nature, Unity, and Trinity of God 42 

CHAPTER V 

The Creation 55 

CHAPTER VI 

Sin and the Kedemption 67 

CHAPTER VII 

Virtue and Good Works 79 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Soul 84 

CHAPTER IX 

The Mystic Union or the Divine Birth in the Soul 93 

CHAPTER X 

Conclusion 108 

The Condemned Propositions 112 

Bibliography 115 



INTRODUCTION 

Perhaps no era in the history of the latter Middle Ages 
offers so many and snch various problems as that extend- 
ing from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the 
fourteenth century, from 1250 to 1350. It was a time of 
great politico-religious unrest for the greater part of 
Europe, but especially for the Holy Eoman Empire. The 
struggles between the Empire and the Papacy, which 
resulted in almost continual wars and interdicts, were 
followed in Germany by the Great Interregnum, the dark- 
est period of her history. The Interregnum was in reality 
an age of lawlessness and universal anarchy. "Might 
over right," or, as it was then termed, the "Faustrecht", 
became the ruling principle. 

The ascension of Eudolf of Hapsburg to the imperial 
throne brought a period of comparative peace to the 
afflicted states, when in 1313 another double election set 
up as rival kings Frederick the Fair and Louis the 
Bavarian. Both were crowned: Frederick at the wrong 
place, Bonn, but by the right person, the Archbishop of 
Cologne; Louis at the right place, Aix la Chapelle, but 
by the wrong person, the Archbishop of Mainz. Eenewed 
civil war, renewed struggle between the Empire and the 
Papacy, is the sad record of the next thirty years. Ex- 
communication and interdict followed in their train ; these 
latter often weighed heavier upon the people than even 
the stress of war. Infants remained without baptism, 
Mass was not celebrated, the sacred offices for the dead 
ceased, and in some cities priests were forced to continue 
their functions in spite of the interdict or go into 
banishment. 

The long conflict between the Pope and the Emperor 
and the prevailing lawlessness of the Interregnum were 
not without their influence on the clergy. We have but to 
turn to the history of the councils and synods of those 

7 



8 MEISTER ECKEHART 

days, and everywhere we see how the Church fought 
against luxury, immorality, and avarice among the clergy. 
There can he little doubt that this licentiousness was 
the source of many degrading vices. Numbers of ecclesi- 
astics, although they were continually reminded of their 
obligation to observe the law of celibacy and to preserve 
in their person a dignity becoming their state, continued 
to be in a large measure, the slaves of their passions, 
worldly minded, lovers of pleasure, avaricious, and 
simoniacal. 1 The bestowal of several benefices on the 
same person or on unworthy candidates, sometimes even 
on young children, was followed by most baneful results. 

This sad picture, however, is not without its bright side. 
There were many ecclesiastics distinguished for eminent 
virtues to whose efforts and influence may be traced many 
institutions worthy of the undying gratitude of mankind. 2 
It was at this period, too, that the mendicant orders, the 
Franciscans and the Dominicans, foremost in their devo- 
tion to the religious instruction of the people, exercised a 
powerful influence for good on the masses. The people, 
perplexed by never-ending conflicts and longing, in 
general, for religious guides, flocked to the Friars to 
nourish themselves with the word of God. 

Everywhere the evils of the time caused more serious 
natures to turn with an intense longing toward nobler 
ideals, toward a deeper Christian spirit, toward some 
higher principle which might direct them, even in the 
midst of daily turmoil, in their efforts to keep alive 
an interior life, to concentrate themselves more on 
their spiritual needs and thus produce a truer spirit 
of piety and a stricter morality. Many renounced 
the world to dedicate themselves to God in the religious 
life. The convents in particular became so many 
centers of mysticism whose inmates, especially the 



3 Cf. Michael, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes II, p. 15 ff. Freiburg, 
1899; also Hefele, Konziliengeschichte II. Freiburg, 1890. 

2 Alzog, J., Manual of Church History II, p. 649. Cincinnati, 1902. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 9 

nuns, zealously gave themselves up to a life of con- 
templation. Among many others mention must be made 
of the Dominican nuns of Adelhausen near Freiburg in 
Breisgau; of Unterlinden near Colmar; of Schonstein- 
bach in Alsace ; of Toss, Diessenhof en, and Oftenbach in 
Switzerland ; of Engelthal in Franconia ; to these must be 
added the Cistercian nuns of Helfta, among whom were 
the famous abbess, Gertrude of Hackeborn, 3 with her 
sister, St. Mechtilde, and St. Gertrude ; also the Beguines, 
Mechtilde of Magdeburg, noted for her mystic work, 
"Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit", Luitgard of Ba- 
varia, and Christina of Stommeln. 4 Thus, while the Fran- 
ciscans, Berchtold of Eegensburg and David of Augs- 
burg, preached to the masses who suffered so severely 
under the repeated interdicts, the nuns enjoyed in the 
solitude of the cloister frequent mystic communings with 
their God. It was in the Ehineland, however, that relig- 
ious experiences were more intense and manifold, and 
that the greatest numbers of devout souls were found who 
aspired to an entire purification of the heart, and to union 
with God; and who, therefore, submitted voluntarily to 
the sharpest austerities, to poverty and humility, to anni- 
hilation of pride and self-will, as a means of approaching 
nearer to God. 

The Golden Age of scholasticism was rapidly declining, 
when there grew up on German soil a particular branch 
of mysticism, which has, even down to recent times, ex- 
erted an influence on German thought and poetry. This 
German mysticism was developed chiefly by means of 
sermons. The perfecter, if not also the author, of this 
development, was Meister Eckehart, a Dominican monk, 
who drew his matter largely from the doctrines of earlier 
writers, particularly from the Pseudo-Areopagite and St. 
Augustine, as well as from the best theologians of the 



3 This Gertrude is often mistaken for St. Gertrude, who is sometimes 
called the Great. 

4 Michael, op. cit, pp. 164-211. 



10 MEISTER ECKEHART 

Middle Ages, equally renowned as scholastics and 
as mystics. Foremost among these latter were St. Ber- 
nard, the Victorines, St. Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, 
and St. Thomas Aquinas. 5 These names are continually 
encountered up and down the pages of Meister Eckehart. 
In fact, it was more especially the Yictorines who paved 
the way for the mysticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries. Although Eckehart 's principal aim in his ser- 
mons and treatises was to edify and arouse the people, 
there is no trace in his works of the fanatical zeal of the 
reformer pointing the finger of scorn at the moral ills 
of the day. He does not so much ignore these evils, as he 
rises above them like one animated by a purely theoretical 
interest. 6 

The school of Eckehart produced in the fourteenth cen- 
tury some of the brightest clusters of names in the history 
of mysticism. In Euysbroek, Bl. Henry Suso, Tauler, 
and the unknown author of the Theologia Germanica in- 
trospective mysticism is seen at its best. This must not 
be understood to mean that they improved upon the 
philosophical system of Eckehart, or that they are en- 
tirely free from the dangerous tendencies which have 
been found in his works. On the speculative side they add 
nothing of value, and none of them rivals Eckehart in 
depth of intellect. But there is in their works an unfalter- 
ing conviction that communion with God must be a fact 
of experience and not only a philosophical theory- 7 

5 Hergenrother, Kirchengeschichte II, p. 497. Freiburg, 1904. 
"uberweg, History of Philosophy I, p. 469. New York, 1901. 
7 W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 167. New York, 1899. 



CHAPTEE I 

THE LIFE OF MEISTER ECKEHART 

The attempt to gather the necessary data for the biog- 
raphy of any of the great mystics is rendered more than 
usually difficult by the reticence of the mystics them- 
selves, who, though ready enough to reveal their spiritual 
experiences in their works, are exceedingly reserved as 
to the facts of their private lives. In fact, one of their 
principal aims is to be unknown and forgotten. The 
difficulty is still greater if the mystic is a member of some 
religious order. Although the outward life of the relig- 
ious is regulated in almost every detail by the rules and 
constitutions, yet the rich inner life can often be learned 
only from his writings and we know but too well that 
such conjectures are always more or less subjective. 
These facts account no doubt for the little we know of 
Meister Eckehart 's 1 life and for much of the uncertainty 
concerning even that little. 

The early life of Eckehart is so shrouded in mystery 
that not even the time of his birth is exactly known. It is, 
however, generally admitted that he was born about the 
year 1260. The place of his birth remained long an open 
question; some, like Preger and Quetif-Echard, sought 
it in Thuringia, others with Jundt in Strasburg. This 
problem has been definitely settled by the great Domini- 
can savant, Henry Seuse Denifle, whose learned re- 
searches 2 prove that Eckehart was a Thuringian. 

In the first place, Denine cites the manuscript of the 
Amploniana of Erfurt, F. 36, on the reverse side of whose 
second fly-leaf is a Latin sermon of Meister Eckehart 
which concludes with the following information: "This 

ir This method of spelling Eckehart has "been adopted after the ex- 
ample of Denifle and Biittner as the older and more correct form. The 
dissyllabic Eckhart was introduced with the printed edition of Tauler's 
sermons and has since been followed by many writers. 

2 Archiv fur Literatur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters V, p. 
351. Berlin, 1888. 

11 



12 MEISTER ECKEHART 

sermon was delivered by Meister Eckehart de Hochheim 
of Paris on the feast of Blessed Augustine. " 3 To judge 
by its character, the manuscript must belong to the begin- 
ning of the fourteenth century, whereas its inner evidence, 
such as the manner of treating scriptural texts and its 
relation to St. Thomas, all point to Eckehart's earlier 
years. Hence the manuscript gains in importance as a 
contemporaneous, and, therefore, highly valued, docu- 
ment. According to authentic evidence there was only 
one Meister Eckehart in Paris at the beginning of the 
fourteenth century and he must have been born either in a 
place called Hochheim or of a family of the same name. 
It was, moreover, customary in the Middle Ages, to add 
to the person's name that of the city or at least of the 
diocese in which he was born. Furthermore, Denifle 
discovered in the convent of the Holy Cross belong- 
ing to the Cistercian nuns at Gotha an old document 
dated May 19, 1305, in which mention is made of a 
deceased "Sir Eckardus, Knight, known as de Hoch- 
heim, ' ' 4 a benefactor, who had donated a tract of land on 
condition that the nuns pray for the repose of his soul 
and that of his consort. This document goes to prove 
that a family of the name of Hochheim probably dwelt or 
at least possessed some property near Gotha ; there is at 
present a village of Hochheim a few miles north of Gotha. 
The titles dominus and miles show that this Eckehart of 
Hochheim belonged to a knightly family- 

Another fact worthy of notice is that the document in 
question bears, besides the convent seal, a second one 
which is that of Meister Eckehart. The deed concludes 
with the following words: "In proof whereof and for a 
more complete memorial of our venerable Father, Meister 
Eckehart of Paris, Provincial of the Friar Preachers for 
the Province of Saxony, we have caused this deed to be 



3 Iste sermo sic est reportatus ab ore magistri Echardi de Hochheim 
die beati Augustini Parisius. 

4 Dominus Eckardus miles dictus de Hochheim. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 13 

the better authenticated by affixing thereto the seals of 
our convent. ' ' 5 There can be no doubt that this Meister 
Eckehart is the same as the subject of this biography. 
The only possible reason why Eckehart 's name should 
appear in the document would be his close relationship to 
the deceased ; it is quite probable that he was his son and, 
therefore, signed the deed as the representative of the 
family. 

Eckehart 's childhood and youth were lived at a time 
when Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas had 
reached the summit of their power and fame, and when 
the Order of Preachers had entered on its most brilliant 
epoch. Is it surprising then that the order with its great 
aims exerted so powerful an influence on the youthful 
heart and mind of Eckehart? We do not know at what 
age he resolved to dedicate himself to God in the Order 
of St. Dominic, but according to the constitution of the 
Order he must have completed his fifteenth year. It was 
likewise customary to enter the monastery nearest one's 
native place, which, in the case of Eckehart, was that of 
Erfurt. 

He had now to pursue the regular course laid down by 
the statutes of the General Chapters which ordained that 
the young novice begin his regular studies only after his 
second year in the monastery. The Studium logicale or 
the triviwm, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, formed a 
three years' course; after this two more years were de- 
voted to the Studium naturale or the quadrivium, arith- 
metic, mathematics, astronomy, and music. These studies 
served as prerequisites for that of sacred theology to 
which they led. The first year of theology embraced the 
Studium biblicum, and the next two the study of the Sen- 
tences or Dogma. For this latter the German province 



5 In cuius rei fidem et memoriam ampliorem venerabilis patris mag- 
istri Eckardi Parisiensis, provincialis fratrum ordinis Predicatorum per 
provinciam Saxonie et nostri conventus sigillorum appensione hanc 
literam fecimus firmiter communiri. Datum anno Domini MCCCV 
XIII. kl. Junii. 



14 MEISTER ECKEHART 

had at that time probably but one school which, it is 
thought, was at Strasburg. After their course in theol- 
ogy the students were promoted to the sacred priesthood. 
The more promising of these young Levites were sent 
after their ordination to what might be called the "high 
school' ' or Studium generate of the order. At this period 
the Dominicans had five such schools, the most renowned 
of them being that of St. James at Paris, while Cologne 
ranked next. The course of instruction lasted three 
years. Although the system of Peter Lombard still domi- 
nated in the schools, nevertheless at Cologne the spirit of 
Albertus Magnus and of St. Thomas Aquinas, who had 
taught there for several years, was still felt. In fact, 
Eckehart 's first mystic work, "Kede der Unterschei- 
dunge," shows the influence and recalls in many ways 
Albert's "De adhaerendo Deo". 

The Dominican regulations forbade anyone to be 
chosen prior who had not been lector for at least three 
years. Where Eckehart exercised this latter office is not 
known. One of the earliest documentary references to 
Eckehart is the title of a treatise known as the "Bede der 
Unterscheidunge": 6 "These are the conferences on dis- 
cernment, which the Yicar of Thuringia, the Prior of 
Erfurt, Brother Eckehart of the Order of Preachers, gave 
to those of his children who asked him many questions 
in these conferences, as they sat together for collation." 7 
It is an open question as to when Eckehart held the two- 
fold office of vicar and prior. All we know is that it must 
have been previous to 1298, for the General Chapter of 
that year ordained that in future both offices might not be 
filled simultaneously by the same person. Preger 8 asserts 
that Eckehart had been lector for three years before he 

•Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mystiker II, p. 543. Leipzig, 1857. 

7 Daz sint die rede der unterscheidunge, die der Vicarius von 
Diiringen, der Prior von Erfort, bruoder Eckehart predier ordens mit 
solichen kinden hete, diu in dirre rede frageten vil dinges, d6 sie 
sazen in collationibus mit einander. 

8 Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter I, p. 328. 
Leipzig, 1874. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 15 

was nominated prior. We have, however, no certainty 
in this matter, as it was not nntil 1291 that the Order 
laid down the new regulation, that no one who had not 
been lector for three years could hold the office* of prior, 
and it is not known whether it was before or after this 
new decree that Eckehart was elected prior of Erfurt. 

If we know but little of Eckehart 's exterior labors 
during the period when he was Prior and Vicar in Thur- 
ingia, we have in the "Conferences" a rich source of in- 
formation regarding his inner life and his activity as a 
teacher. It was customary for the monks during collation 
to question the Prior on various topics pertaining to 
christian and religious life. In his answers to his spirit- 
ual children Eckehart quite unconsciously and simply 
betrays his deepest aspirations, the hidden springs of 
his activity. A few extracts chosen at random will suffice 
to prove this. Speaking of true obedience he lays down 
the great principle of St. Francis de Sales, "Ask nothing 
and refuse nothing, ' ' as follows : " 'I want this or that ' is 
never found in true obedience; for true obedience is a 
forgetfulness of self; therefore, the best prayer that one 
can make is not, '0 Lord, give me this virtue or that,' but 
rather, '0 Lord, give me only what Thou wishest and 
do with me whatever Thou wilt. ' ' 9 Everywhere through- 
out the Conferences, no matter what the question pro- 
posed, the keynote is always complete submission to God's 
will in all things, great or small, often embodying, as it 
does, great self-renunciation even to death of self. "Ver- 
ily if a person gave up a kingdom or the whole world and 
did not renounce himself, he gave up nothing." 10 "Adhere 
to God and God and all virtues will adhere to you. ' ni How 
this is to be accomplished the following passage explains : 
"A man cannot learn this by either flying from or avoid- 
ing things and then entering into exterior solitude into 



9 Pfeiffer, 544, 10. 
10 Pfeiffer, 545, 59. 
"Pfeiffer, 547, 7. 



16 MEISTER ECKEHART 

which he alwavs can enter, no matter where or with whom 
he may be." 12 "The will is entire and right, when it is 
without any properties, when it has renounced itself, and 
has formed and moulded itself on that of God. " 13 " Many 
say, we have a good will, but they have not God's will; 
they want their will and want to teach Our Lord what to 
do." 14 "We must learn to leave ourselves until nothing 
of self remains." 15 "Whatever God shall send, we must 
take it as coming directly from Him, as best for us, and 
after that remain in peace." 16 "Do not place sanctity in 
doing, but in being. Works do not sanctify us, we ought 
rather to sanctify them." 17 A clear insight into the hu- 
man heart is betrayed by the following: "And thus it 
may prove at times more troublesome to suppress a word 
than to refrain from all conversation. And thus it is far 
harder to bear a little contemptuous word, which is really 
nothing in itself, than a big blow to which one has exposed 
oneself; and one often finds it more difficult to be recol- 
lected amongst men than to live in solitude, and frequently 
it costs more to give up a trifle than something important, 
and to practise some little act than to accomplish a deed 
considered very great." 18 

The next definite and reliable information still extant 
regarding Meister Eckehart pertains to his first sojourn 
at Paris. A treatise of Stephen de Salahanco, "The 
Four Brethren through whom God distinguished the 
Order of Preachers," of which we possess at present 
only a revision by Bernard Guidonis, recounts in the third 
part, "concerning illustrious members," eighty-eight 
Dominicans who received the Doctorate in Paris. As 
Denifle proves, 19 this roll beginning with the thirty-second 



^Pfeiffer, 549, 17. 
"Pfeiffer, 553, 7. 
14 Pfeiffer, 555, 1. 
15 Pfeiffer, 571, 14. 
16 Pfeiffer, 572, 3. 
"Pfeiffer, 546, 22. 
18 Pfeiffer, 562, 39. 

19 Denifle, Quellen zur Gelehrtengeschichte des Predigerordens. 
Archiv II, p. 183. Berlin, 1886. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 17 

name was continued by Bernard Guidonis. The fifty- 
second is " Brother Eckehart, a German, was created 
Master A. D. 1302. He was confirmed as provincial prior 
of Saxony in the General Chapter of Toulouse A. D. 
1304.' ' 20 This document proves first that Eckehart re- 
ceived the title of Master in Paris A. D. 1302, and sec- 
ondly, that two years later the General Chapter of the 
Order of Toulouse confirmed his election as the first 
provincial of the Province of Saxony. According to Pum- 
merer 21 all other accounts that Preger gives of Meister 
Eckehart 's first stay in Paris are mere conjectures. 
Owing to the conflict between Boniface VIII and the Uni- 
versity of Paris, it was not the Pope but the Faculty of 
the University that conferred the Doctorate on Eckehart, 
not because he was opposed to Boniface, but because, be- 
ing a foreigner, he occupied a neutral position. It is 
morally certain that if Eckehart had shown the least 
hostility to the Papacy, the Order would never have 
nominated him to the high post of provincial. 

Before Meister Eckehart, as he was now styled, could 
enter upon his third year of teaching, he was recalled to 
Germany , where the extraordinary expansion of the 
Dominicans rendered a division of the Order necessary. 
That he must have shown himself worthy of the trust 
placed in him, is proved by the fact that the first provin- 
cial chapter held that same year 1303, elected him its 
first Provincial Prior; he was re-elected in 1307 at the 
Chapter of Minden. 

It was during Eckehart 's first term of office that the 
General Chapter held at Paris in 1306 lodged certain 
complaints against the Provincials of Germany and Sax- 
ony on account of some irregularities among the ter- 



20 Frater Aychardus, Theutonicus, fuit licenciatus anno domini 
MCCCII . Hie fuit confirmatus in priorem provincialem Saxonie in 
generali capitulo tholosano anno dom. MCCCIIII . 

21 Pummerer, Der gegenwartige Stand der Eckehartforschung. 
Jahresbericht des offentlichen Privatgymnasiums an der Stella Matutina 
zu Feldkirch., 1903, p. 12. 



18 MEISTER ECKEHART 

tiaries. Both were given directions to remove these dis- 
orders before the feast of the Purification A. D. 1307, or 
to fast two days each week until this duty was accom- 
plished. Preger surmises there was question of heresy 
among the tertiaries, and adds: "We know that the ter- 
tiaries of the Mendicant Orders were sometimes during 
this period designated as Beghards and Beguines whom 
they resembled. Among the Beghards, the Brethren of 
the Free Spirit had a great following and the tertiaries 
themselves were infected by their doctrines." 22 Preger 
then concludes that Eckehart secretly sympathized with 
the heretics and therefore took no steps to prevent the 
disorder. But if such had really been the case, it is 
hardly conceivable that Eckehart should have been re- 
elected provincial and above all been deputed by Aymer- 
ich de Placentia in the General Chapter of Strasburg as 
his Vicar-General to Bohemia with extensive powers to 
reform the several relaxed monasteries of that country. 
As Eckehart held at the same time the office of Provincial 
of Saxony, this mission to Bohemia was evidently of brief 
duration. 

At the expiration of his second term as provincial he 
was sent by the General, Aymerich de Placentia, as lec- 
turer to Paris. 23 Here he resumed his lectures on the 
Sentences. Of this period nothing certain is known. 
That he spent a longer or a shorter time in Strasburg as 
professor of sacred theology is evidenced by the Eegister 
of the City of Strasburg (III. 236) where we find the 
entry: 1314 Magister Eckehardus professor sacre the- 
ologie. He was also appointed ordinary preacher and 
many of his sermons of those days are still extant. The 
Latin sermons he addressed to his religious brethren 
either in the monastery or at chapters of the Order. Sev- 
eral convents of nuns and some Beguinages were placed 

-Preger, op. cit, p. 338. 

2S Fuit absolutus apud Neapolim anno Domini MCCCXI, et missus 
Parisius ad legendum. Martene-Durand, Veterum SS. coll. VI, 343. Cf 
Archiv V, p. 349. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 19 

under his spiritual direction; to them as well as to the 
people, who flocked to the churches, he preached in the 
vernacular. 

Preger says that Eckehart was transferred to Frank- 
fort some time after 1317. 24 He bases his statement on a 
letter of the General Herveus 25 to the Priors of Worms 
and Mainz, in which he directs them to investigate certain 
facts that reached him regarding Eckehart, the Prior of 
Frankfort, and Theodoric of St. Martin. They were 
accused of holding familiar intercourse with evil per- 
sons — malis familiaritatibus. Preger asserts that ac- 
cording to the constitutions of the Order mala famili- 
aritas signifies those suspected of heresy, that is the 
heretical Beghards and Beguines so numerous in those 
days. Denifle proves the utter falsity of these assertions. 
His facts are drawn from the same document which 
Preger has so entirely misconstrued. Let us listen to the 
learned Dominican: "A proof that Eckehart was guilty 
of familiar intercourse with heretics, was supposed to be 
found in a letter of the General Herveus to the Priors of 
Worms and Mainz. . . . What was it customary in 
the Order to denote by mala familiaritas? Perhaps inter- 
course or friendship with heretics! Anything but this; 
it was rather evil, scandalous relations with women. 
. . . The technical term mala familiaritas was substi- 
tuted in the year 1264 or 1266 for the older expression 
suspecta familiaritas mulieris and is identical with it. 
Granted that Meister Eckehart was the Prior of Frank- 
fort, the aforesaid letter of Herveus would still supply no 



24 Preger, op. cit, p. 352. Ch. Schmidt makes the same statement in 
Etudes sur le mysticisme allemand au XIV siecle. (Memo-ires de 
l'Academie des sciences morales et politiques II, p. 238.) The same 
statement is repeated by A. L. McMahon in the Catholic Encyclopedia 
V, p. 274. 

25 Habui etiam delationes graves de fratre Ekardo nostro priore apud 
Frankefort, et de fratre Theodorico de sancto Martino, de malis 
familiaritatibus et suspectis, et idcirco de ipsis duobus signanter 
inquiratis sollicite, et secundum quod invenerits eos culpabiles, 
puniatis et corrigatis, sicut iudicaveritis expedire ordinis honestati. 
Archiv II, p. 618. 



20 MEISTER ECKEHART 

evidence whatever for the assumption that Eckehart held 
any intercourse with heretics, as absolutely nothing of 
the kind occurs in the above writing. The accusation, as 
we have seen, refers to unlawful relations with women. 

"But is Meister Eckehart identical with f rater Ekar- 
dus, who was Prior of Frankfort? Where is the proof? 
There is only a single one, namely, a similarity of name ! 
But was there at that time in all Germany only one 
Dominican named Eckehart? By no means; we know of 
at least three: Meister Eckehart, Eckehart the Younger, 
who was not Master, and who died in 1367, and the lector, 
Eckehart Kube. Similarly there may have been some 
other Dominican of the same name. ... Is there 
such an accusation, as we have mentioned, known con- 
cerning Meister Eckehart? Not at all; on the contrary, 
we have seen that he could publicly, in presence of the In- 
quisitors, boast of his reputation and say, 'I have always 
detested every kind of immoral conduct.' 26 Eckehart was 
never molested on account of his morals or his conduct. 
On the other hand, we see him spoken of as 'the holy Mas- 
ter,' 'vir sanctus' . . . Is he really identical with the 
Prior of Frankfort? It is very improbable, and this all 
the more so, as the prior is simply called frater, whereas 
if Meister Eckehart were the one implied, the title of Mas- 
ter would not be wanting ; and as no other document than 
the above mentioned letter of Herveus can be produced as 
evidence of Eckehart 's sojourn in Frankfort, it is there- 
fore extremely doubtful if he ever was in Frankfort." 27 

How long Eckehart remained in Strasburg cannot be 
known with any certainty. All we are sure of is, that 
some time previous to 1326 he was sent to fill the chair 
of dogmatic theology at Cologne, one of the most influen- 
tial and honorable posts of his Order in Germany. With 
his labors in Cologne we reach the closing years of his 
untiring activity. As professor he exerted a profound 



20 Denifle, opus cit, II p. 631. 
"Ibid., 618. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 21 

influence on the younger generation of his Order, and as 
preacher he powerfully moved the throngs who ordinarily 
filled the church. The bull of John XXII that condemns 
some of his doctrines, as well as the papal letter to the 
Archbishop of Cologne ordering the publication of the 
bull, speak of Eckehart as doctor of Sacred Scripture and 
professor of the Friar Preachers ; 28 in the latter writing 
the Pope discriminates between preaching, writing, and 
teaching, (predicasse, scripsisse et dogmatizasse). 

At the General Chapter of the Order in Venice A. D. 
1325 complaints were made that some of the brethren of 
the German Province, when preaching to the illiterate 
common people, spoke on such profound topics as could 
easily lead them to heresy. 29 Preger surmises that here 
the first steps were taken against Eckehart 's teaching. 30 
Denifle on the assumption that these complaints are too 
general, believes they bear on the interdict which the 
conflict between the Pope and Louis the Bavarian brought 
on Germany, especially as the minutes of the Chapter 
joined this complaint to that which accuses some of the 
friars in Germany of notable negligence in publications 
concerning the process of the Pope against Louis of Ba- 
varia. 31 However, a careful perusal of Eckehart 's ser- 
mons and those of his disciples shows but too plainly how 
easily they could prove a stumbling block to the simple- 
minded ; and as S. Deutsch says, 32 an unprejudiced exam- 
ination of the aforesaid words must bring them to bear 
upon errors of faith rather than upon the political con- 
flict. Nothing certain, however, is known in the matter, 
not even the result of the investigation of the Vicar, Ger- 
vasius of Angers. Probably it is to this examination that 



28 Ekardus nomine, doctorque ut fertur sacre pagine, ac professor 
ordinis fratrum Predicatorum. Ibid., 636. 

29 In praedicatione vulgari quaedam personis vulgaribus ac rudibus 
in sermonibus proponuntur quae possunt auditores facile deducere in 
errorem. 

S9 Preger, opus cit., p. 355. 

31 Denifle, opus cit, II, p. 624. 

32 Deutsch, Meister Eckehart. Realencyclopedie fur protestantische 
Theologie und Kirche V, p. 144. Leipzig, 1898. 



22 MEISTER ECKEHART 

a passage in the treatise "The Two Ways' ' refers, in 
which Eckehart begs his hearers not to make their friends 
acquainted with the book, which is very difficult, and espe- 
cially since he has been forbidden to disseminate it. 33 For- 
bidden, not because it contained actual heresy, but for 
the reason he himself alleges, that it is difficult and this 
above all for the simple minds of his hearers, whom it 
might lead into error. 

In the same year 1325 accusations against the Friar 
Preachers in Germany were carried to the Papal Court. 
John XXII appointed two Dominicans, Benedict de Come 
and Nicholas of Strasburg, vicars of the General and 
visitors of the German Province, and charged them to look 
into the affair. Preger holds for certain that this letter 
of the Pope is directed against Meister Eckehart, but 
Denifle demonstrates from the same document 34 that no 
direct complaints were made on account of erroneous 
doctrines, but rather censures of irregularities within 
the communities themselves. From the documents, which 
Denifle was the first to publish, 35 we learn what these 
irregularities were, namely: a spirit of discontent; non- 
observance of religious discipline, even by the superiors 
themselves ; molestation of those who kept to strict ob- 
servance ; abuses which the vicars are called upon to cor- 
rect. Hence the papal commission does not apply specifi- 
cally to Eckehart, nor above all to any heresy among the 
Dominicans. 36 

Eckehart had completed his system and given a full 
exposition of it before the last year of his life, when he 
was suspected of heresy. There is not the slightest trace 
of a document, which permits even the supposition that 
before 1326 he aroused the least opposition, provoked the 



33 Vnd sind daz puch ist selb schwer vnd vnbekant manigen lewten 
dar vmb sol man es nicht gemain machen, des pit ich ewch durch got, 
warm es ward mir auch. verpoten. 

34 Denifle, op. cit., IV, p. 314. Pummerer, op, cit., p. 21. 

35 Denifle, ibid. 

38 Aktenstiicke zu Meister Eckehart's Process. Zeitschrift fur 
deutsches Altertum, XXIX, p. 260. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 23 

least inquiry. Previous to the learned researches of 
Denifle, all conclusions bearing on this question rest 
partly on combination, partly on false premises. Since 
the days of Ch. Schmidt it has been believed that Ecke- 
hart was in close touch with the Beghards of Strasburg. 
These had been condemned by John of Durckheim, bishop 
of that city, who called the attention of his clergy to seven 
very dangerous errors of the Beghards and Beguines of 
the diocese, and forbade every communication with the 
heretics, even to the bestowal of alms. According to Las- 
son, these condemned errors were, for the most part, 
drawn from the writings of Eckehart; and yet without 
any molestation he continued his preaching at Strasburg 
till after 1322 ! But where, we ask with Denifle, is the doc- 
ument that can furnish even the smallest clue that Ecke- 
hart was ever harassed by the Bishop of Strasburg? If 
such had been the case, how could he have publicly de- 
clared before the Inquisitors of Cologne on January 24, 
1327, that his Order has been at no time since its founda- 
tion dishonored by the heresy of any friar in the province 
of Germany? 37 How could he have appealed to the good 
reputation which he had ever enjoyed in the opinion of 
good men and of his community? 38 What could the sup- 
pression of the actual facts have availed him with Inquisi- 
tors who were anything but favorably disposed towards 
him, not to mention the circumstance that the Bishop of 
Strasburg was still alive to witness, if necessary, to his 
former errors? 



"Nunquam a tempore sue fundationis nee in aliquo simplici fratre 
in provincia Theutonie fuit de heresi infamatus. 
38 Iudicio bonorum hominum et communium. 



CHAPTEE II 

MEISTEK ECKEHAKT AND THE INQUISITION 

It was only at the close of his life in 1326 that 
Eckehart's doctrine was first called into question by 
Henry of Virneburg, Archbishop of Cologne. According 
to some authorities the Archbishop forwarded complaints 
against Eckehart's doctrine to the papal court, but with- 
out any effect. Prom Eckehart's protest we learn that 
his cause had been examined by Nicholas of Strasburg 
and that he had been wholly exonerated. Nicholas, in 
virtue of the authority which John XXII had conferred 
upon him as vicar and visitor, regarded himself as author- 
ized to interfere with the process begun by Henry of 
Virneburg against Eckehart. He took the cause into his 
own hands, as much to preserve the reputation of the 
Order as to shield Eckehart from designing men. He 
commanded under pain of excommunication that if any 
friar in the monastery knew anything whatever pertain- 
ing to the process against Eckehart, which the honor of 
the Order demanded should be revealed, he should com- 
municate the same to him. As will be noticed shortly, it 
seems all did not render the required obedience. As soon 
as Nicholas was in possession of the necessary data, he 
at once began the official investigation. At its close he 
gave a verdict in favor of Eckehart; nevertheless, the 
Archbishop formally summoned Eckehart to appear be- 
fore his tribunal on January 31, 1327. Henry then ap- 
pointed as Inquisitors the rivals of Eckehart, two Fran- 
ciscan theologians of Cologne. This was an open 
challenge to the Dominicans and caused the entire Order 
to take sides with Eckehart. He did not wait for the day 
set by the commissioners, but appeared before that time, 
on January 24th, accompanied by five of his brethren and 
several other monks for the reading of his protest to the 
Inquisitors, which his confrere, Conrad of Halberstadt, 

24 



MEISTER ECKEHART 25 

did in his name. 1 After asserting that in accusing him of 
heresy they had accused his Order, in which from its very 
foundation no one had ever been suspected of heresy, he 
protests in energetic terms against the disgraceful man- 
ner in which the Inquisitors had proceeded against him, by 
their arbitrary and shameful dragging out of the whole 
affair, which could have been concluded before the middle 
of the previous year. Conscious of his innocence, which 
he repeatedly affirms, he complains of the annoying and 
harsh treatment of the commissioners in summoning him 
so often and without any necessity, notwithstanding that 
he always declared his readiness to obey the law and the 
Church of God. He reproaches his judges with the scan- 
dal given to clerics and the laity by this long-drawn-out 
process and indignantly protests against their demand of 
a recantation before they are able to convict him of 
heresy. Above all he bitterly upbraids the Inquisitors 
with citing suspicious members of his Order to give evi- 
dence against him, because these latter hoped in this way 
to escape the well-deserved punishment due their own 
irregularities, and with lending a readier ear to these 
false witnesses and their statements than to his innocence. 2 
Eckehart then affirms his obedience to the Church, de- 
clares he submits his doctrine to her authoritative judg- 
ment, and recalls any proposition that might be contrary 
to her dogma ; an attitude which he preserved to the end of 
his life. After again emphasizing the illegality of the 
whole process, for his case had been legally closed by 
Nicholas of Strasburg and could not, therefore, be judged 
by another court, he closes his protest with an appeal to 

Tor the complete text see Denifle, op. cit. II, p. 627. 

2 Et ad infamandum me amplius advocatis frequenter fratris mei 
ordinis suspectos eidem ordini vehementer propter causas evidenter 
notas, qui propter notam excessuum turpitudinis propriorum id pro- 
curant apud vos, incorrigibiles esse volentes super suis excessibus in 
iure notoriis per judicum suorum sententias, super quo ipsos fovetis 
impossibiliter in gravamen et notam mei status et ordinis mei predicti, 
quorum dictis falsis magis innitimini, quam mee innocentie et puri- 
tati. For the full text see Denifle, Akten zum Prozesse Meister Ecke- 
harts. Archiv II, p. 628. 



26 MEISTER ECKEHART 

the Roman Curia expressing his willingness and readiness 
to appear at Avignon on the Monday after Jubilate Sun- 
day, which occurred in that year (1327) on May fourth. 
Denine tells us who these witnesses were — the friars 
Hermann de Summo and William. The former was not 
unknown, as his name occurs in two different documents. 
In the first we read that at one time he appeared as 
accuser, at another as assistant, and finally as witness. 3 
It seems that he vented his rage likewise against Nich- 
olas of Strasburg, whom the Pope had appointed Vicar 
of Germany. Hermann, who calumniated Eckehart, had 
in revenge for a well-deserved punishment denounced 
Nicholas and thus caused him to be excommunicated. 4 
This fact explains sufficiently why Hermann passed over 
to a party hostile to Eckehart ; the Archbishop became his 
protector and as long as the process continued he had 
nothing to fear from Nicholas, justly incensed against 
him. It was not otherwise in regard to his accomplice and 
confrere William. 5 William appears to have surpassed 
Hermann in his enmity towards Meister Eckehart, whom 
he accused as a heretic who knowingly and deliberately 
defended his errors. It is hardly necessary to state that 
the Archbishop and the commissioners were ill advised 
by these two refractory monks. The bill of indictment 
sent to Avignon alludes to this fact, and the Pope, whose 
attention was drawn to the false witnesses, took up at 
his curia the investigation against Eckehart, thus putting 
an end to the process at Cologne. This same bill mani- 
fests the great veneration in which Meister Eckehart was 
held by his Order ; it refers to his faith and holiness of 



3 Aliquando gessit personam actoris, aliquando assessoris, aliquando 
testis. Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum XXIX, p. 263. 

4 Ipse cum aliis dicitur proeurasse, ut etiam famosum est et satis 
publicum, quod vicarius ille ex hoc et propter hoc, quia quondam 
fratrem suis gravibus excessibus puniverat, denunciatus fuit excom- 
municationis sententiam incurrisse. Ibid. 

°Contra fratrem Gulielmum socium predict! fratris Hermanni. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 27 

life, which neither Hermann nor anyone else who knew 
him could doubt. 6 

On Friday, February 13, 1327, Eckehart preached to 
the people in the church of the Dominicans. After the 
sermon he begged Friar Conrad of Halberstadt to read 
in the presence of a notary a document 7 which he had 
previously drawn up. As soon as Conrad had read an 
article, Eckehart explained it word for word in German 
to the congregation. He then protested his aversion to 
every species of heresy and immorality and withdrew 
any error that might be found against faith or morals 
either in his writings or in his spoken words. "If there 
be discovered anything erroneous in what I have written, 
spoken, or preached, openly or secretly, in any place or 
at any time, directly or indirectly, in a sense not quite 
correct or to be rejected, I retract it here and now, 
explicitly and publicly, before all here present, together 
and individually, and from this moment I wish it to be 
considered as neither written nor spoken." Then Ecke- 
hart took up three articles which had been misinterpreted, 
showed how he understood them, 8 and again affirmed his 
perfect readiness to correct and recall whatever should 
prove to be heterodox. 

Much has been written about this recantation of 
Meister Eckehart. Preger, as well as several others, 
refuse to believe that Eckehart reallv recalled any of his 



6 De cuius tarn en fide et vite sanctitate nee ipse (Hermann) debet 
nee alius, qui vitam suam noverit, dubitare. 

Tor the complete text see Denifle, op. cit. II, p. 630. 

8 Specialiter etiam quia male intellectum me audio, quod ego 
predicaverim, minimum meum digitum creasse omnia, quia illud non 
intellexi, nee dixi prout verba sonant, sed dixi de digitis illius parvi 
pueri Jhesu. 

Et quod aliquid sit in anima, si ipsa tota esset talis, ipsa esset 
increata, intellexi verum esse et intelligo etiam secundum doctores 
meos collegas, si anima esset intellectus essentialiter. 

Nee etiam unquam dixi, quod sciam, nee sensi, quod aliquid sit 
in anima, quod sit aliquid animae quod sit increatum et increabile, 
quia tunc anima esset peciata excreato et increato, cuius oppositum 
scripsi et docui, nisi quis vellet dicere: increatum vel non creatum, 
id est non per se creatum, sed concreatum. Denifle, op. cit. II 
p. 631. 



28 MEISTER ECKEHART 

doctrines or even admitted their heresy. 9 Charles Schmidt 
goes so far as to say : "Each line of Eckehart's writings 
betrays a conviction so profound, a religious and philo- 
sophical enthusiasm so ardent, a logic so inflexible, that 
an absolute retractation would hardly be comf ormable to 
his character"; therefore Schmidt calls this retractation 
' ' an illusion on the part of Eckehart. ' ' 10 Delacroix, after 
stating that Eckehart did not expressly reject the twenty- 
eight incriminated articles, as they had not yet been 
definitely drawn up, adds that by the full submission he 
promised in advance to the pontifical decrees, he leads 
us to believe that he would not have hesitated to retract 
them earlier. Hence Delacroix admits, as every candid, 
unbiased mind logically must, that Eckehart's whole 
character as revealed in his writings, shows a thinker as 
upright as he is profound and withal a most obedient 
son of Mother Church, who, without laying down any 
condition, humbly submits to the decisions of the Holy 
See. 11 And yet Delacroix cannot refrain from adding: 
"Truly, humility is admirable, but the exercise of the 
intellect supposes a little pride ; to think, it is necessary 
to be, that is to say, it is necessary to begin by being 
conscious of one's own being. One admires the equa- 
nimity of character, the profound modesty, the perfect 
propriety which enabled an Eckehart or a Fenelon to sub- 
mit absolutely and without any restriction to a judgment 
on their teaching; but this admiration is not without a 
little impatience and ill-humor ; truth is diverse and each 
person in the very name of general and absolute truth, 
has the duty of defending the species of truth which he 
produces. Eeason cannot bow but before reason. 12 Biitt- 
ner does not hesitate to call the statement that Eckehart 



9 Preger, op. cit, p. 361. 
"Schmidt, op. cit, p. 244. 

"Delacroix, Essai sur le mysticisme speculatif en Allemagne, p. 229 
Paris, 1899. 

12 Ibid., p. 231. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 29 

recanted a falsification of history. 13 But did Eckehart not 
say distinctly and before witnesses, whose names are 
affixed to the document, that if on impartial examination 
it was found that he had taught anything contrary to the 
Catholic faith, he recanted it as completely as though it 
had never been written or spoken? He surely could not 
recall each of the twenty-eight articles before they had 
been condemned! Evidently, three of the articles had 
been specifically censured by the Inquisitors, and these 
three, as said above, he interprets in an orthodox sense 
for his hearers. We must, however, admit that Eckehart 
never appeared greater, nor more triumphant than when, 
conscious of his own human limitations, he submitted 
freely and unconditionally to a higher, to a divinely ap- 
pointed authority- What then renders this belief in Ecke- 
hart 's retractation so difficult? 

His appeal to the Eoman Curia was rejected by 
the Commission on February 22, 1327, as worthless, 
"frivola." The process was not concluded at Cologne, 
but was brought to a final issue two years later at Avig- 
non, when John XXII, in the Bull l ' In agro dominico, ' n * 
condemned twenty-eight articles drawn from Eckehart 's 
works. The first fifteen and the last two are pronounced 
heretical and the eleven others as daring and liable to 
contain heresy, although by means of many expositions 
and additions they can be interpreted in a Catholic 
sense. 15 Then follows the prohibition to defend or ap- 
prove the condemned articles and the bull concludes by 
stating that Eckehart before his death again fully 
retracted any word, spoken or written, that was found 
to contain heresy or was capable of any heretical 
interpretation. 



16 



13 Biittner, Meister Eckeharts Schriften und Predigten, I, p. XXXIV. 
Leipzig, 1903. 

"For full text see Denifle, op. cit. II, p. 636. 

15 Male sonare et multum esse temerarios de heresique suspectos, 
licet cum multis expositionibus et suppletionibus sensum catholicum 
formare valeant vel habere. 

16 Ch. Schmidt (op. cit, p. 245) states that in the following year 



30 MEISTER ECKEHART 

In the meantime Eckehart had quietly passed away 
in 1327, but not without again fully and humbly sub- 
mitting to the decisions of the Holy See. Well might 
his memory be held in benediction by those of his disci- 
ples who knew him best. Blessed Henry Suso, in one 
of his spiritual letters to Elizabeth Staglin, says: "My 
daughter, it is only a short time since you communicated 
to me the high and sublime thoughts you collected from 
the beautiful writings of Meister Eckehart, of holy mem- 
ory, and you did well to preserve them so reverently. 
I am astonished that after having tasted this delicious 
draught, you appear to desire the simple beverage that 
I can give you. ' m Suso tells us in his ' ' Life ' ' that Ecke- 
hart appeared to him in a vision and declared that his 
soul was plunged in an ineffable brightness and all glori- 
fied in God. Suso and Tauler always speak of him in 
terms of the greatest reverence; they call him "the holy 
Master,' ' "the blessed Master," "the Saint.' ' At the 
head of his treatises contemporary copyists wrote : "This 
is Meister Eckehart, from whom God never concealed 
anything," or "This is Meister Eckehart, who taught 
the way of all truth. ' ' 



(1330) Pope John XXII directed a bull against the Beghards; that 
the articles it condemned were exactly like those drawn from Ecke- 
hart's writings; hence there is no doubt of the latter's connection 
with the heretics — he was their friend and secret patron. This error 
was indirectly brought about by Henry of Hervord, who had some 
knowledge of the bull against Eckehart which he supposed had been 
directed against the Beghards. (See Liber de rebus memorab., ed. 
Potthast, p. 247.) 

17 Oeuvres du B. Henri Suso traduites par E. Cartier, p. 542. Paris, 
1856. 



CHAPTER III 

THE WOKKS OF MEISTER ECKEHAET 

1. The Latin Works 

If the student of Eckehart 's works were to use Preger 
as his sole authority, he would be led to conclude that 
Eckehart wrote in German only, that he is par excellence 
the German mystic, the "Father of German Specula- 
tion," for Preger makes no mention of his Latin works, 
no reference to those who, like Nicholas of Cusa and 
Trithemius, have examined them. Nicholas of Cusa 1 tells 
us that he saw many commentaries by Eckehart on nearly 
all the books of Sacred Scripture, many sermons, ques- 
tiones disputatae, etc. ; also a short treatise, a reply to 
his critics, in which he explains his doctrines, and shows 
that his readers did not understand him aright. Trithe- 
mius cites a good, though incomplete list of Eckehart 's 
works. 2 These Latin writings had fallen into oblivion 
until Denifle, in August, 1880, discovered some important 
fragments in a manuscript (Cod. Amplon. Fol. n. 181) 
belonging to the library of Erfurt. Denifle himself has 
given a detailed account of the outcome of his researches. 3 

The greater part of these writings belong to Eckehart 's 
Opus tripartitum. According to the Prologue, this con- 
sisted of three parts. The first, the Liber or opus propo- 
sitionum, contained more than one thousand propositions 
of a theologico-philosophical nature distributed through 
fourteen different treatises, whose titles are enumerated 
in the Prologue. The Liber propositionum was known to 
Trithemius and is probably the work he calls Positionum 
suarum liber, hence the title in Pfeiffer, Liber positionum. 
The second part, the Opus, or liber questionum, was 

Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia doctae ignorantiae. Parisiis, 1514 I., 
fol. 390. 

2 Trithemius De script, ecclesiasticis, cap. 537. Cf. Denifle. op. 
cit. II, p. 418. 

3 Denifle, op. cit. II, p. 417. 

31 



32 MEISTER ECKEHART 

arranged after the fashion of the Summa of St. Thomas 
Aquinas. The third part, the Opus expositionum, con- 
tained the sermons in its first subdivision and com- 
mentaries on Sacred Scripture in the second. In addi- 
tion to two introductions the Erfurt manuscript contains 
only a limited fragment of the third part. The second 
subdivision includes commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, 
and Wisdom. Of the first subdivision there is only a 
fragment of the commentary on Ecclesiasticus. In the 
part still extant Eckehart makes frequent reference to 
other portions of the Opus tripartitum. 

Some months later the learned Dominican discovered 
in the library of the hospital at Cues, on the Moselle, 
another manuscript dating from 1444, which Nicholas 
of Cusa had caused to be transcribed, which is based on 
a more correct and more complete copy than that of 
the Erfurt Codex. 4 It contains, moreover, the Exposi- 
tion on the Gospel of St. John. The Commentary on the 
Book of Wisdom is followed by the twenty-eight con- 
demned articles. After the first seventeen occurs the re- 
mark: "These articles were condemned by the Pope and 
were recalled by Meister Eckehart at the close of his life ; 
the following articles were censured as suspected of 
heresy," 5 then come the remaining eleven. The last part 
of this manuscript is a collection of Latin sermons for 
the different Sundays of the ecclesiastical year. They 
are mostly outlines, a few only are complete. The Cues 
manuscript proves that the "Glossary on the Gospel of 
St. John," as given by Pfeiffer 6 is the work of some 
unknown writer who merely borrowed the opening words, 
"as soon as God was, He created the world," from Ecke- 
hart 's "Glossary"; it also proves that the Pater noster 
edited by Bach 7 belongs to some one else, for that of the 

*Cf. Denifle, op. cit. II, p. 673. 

B Isti articuli condempnati a papa et revocati in fine vite per magis- 
trum Heckardum. Sequentes articuli relicti sunt tamquam suspecti 
Ibid., p. 674. 

"Pfeiffer, op. cit. II., p. 578. 

7 Bach, Meister Eckhart, der Vater der deutschen Speculation, p 233 
Vienna. 1864. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 33 

Cues manuscript is quite short and begins thus : Before 
reciting the Lord's prayer two things are to be noted; 
first, on account of our indolence in regard to the things 
of God we must excite ourselves to pray. 8 

In the days of Suso extracts from these Latin writings 
were translated into German; they were drawn exclu- 
sively from the Commentary on Wisdom. Pfeiffer has 
embodied them in the third part of his work as Maxims. 9 
Most of them are introduced with "Meister Eckehart 
says. ' ' The manuscripts of Erfurt and Cues prove that 
the most important of Eckehart 's works were composed 
in Latin ; that the German writings represent but a very 
insignificant part of his literary labors ; and finally that 
he is essentially a scholastic as regards matter and form. 
Like many of the great Schoolmen who preceded him, he 
is a scholastic as well as a mystic. 

2. The German Works 

Meister Eckehart was one of the first schoolmen to 
write in German, a man of lofty and penetrating spirit 
and of far-reaching influence; 10 yet, strange as it may 
seem, until a very recent date, his writings remained 
buried in oblivion. Many causes may be assigned for 
this fact. In the first place, Eckehart 's field of labor 
was subject to frequent change; he seems to have con- 
fined his activity to sermons preached in various places ; 
and lastly it was in the interest of the Order not to appear 
to favor his doctrine, which had been, in part at least, 
condemned by the Church. Only in our own time, in the 
middle of the last century, were they drawn from their 
obscurity into the open light of day. The honor of dis- 
covering them belongs to Franz Pfeiffer, who, after 
much patience and unremitting labor, published in 1857 



8 Ante dominicam orationem nota duo, primo, quia desides sumus 
ad divina, ideo primo hortatur, ut rogemus et oremus. Denifle, op. cit, 
p. 675. 

Tfeiffer, op. cit. II, p. 597. 

10 E6hmer, Meister Eckehart. Damaris 1865, p. 64. 



34 MEISTER ECKEHART 

a rich collection of Eckehart 's German works. He 
divided this collection into four parts : sermons, treatises, 
maxims, and the Liber positionum. The sermons num- 
ber one hundred and ten; of these, according to Eieger 
Nos. LXXVF, CV-CX are not authentic. There are 
eighteen treatises; the sixth known as "Daz ist swester 
Katrie, meister Eckeharts tohter von Strasburg" origi- 
nated most probably among the Beghards or the Brethren 
of the Free Spirit, who wished to shield themselves 
behind the name and fame of Eckehart. 11 It is quite cer- 
tain that the third treatise, "Von der sele werdikeit und 
eigenschaf t, • ' at least in the form presented by Pf eiffer, 
is not the work of Eckehart, neither is the seventh 
treatise, "Die zeichen eines wahrften grundes," nor the 
eighth, "Von der geburt des ewigen wortes in der sele." 
The last, that is the eighteenth treatise, "Diu Glose iiber 
daz ewangelium S. Johannis," is, as shown above, the 
work of some unknown writer. Two sermons attributed 
by Pfeiffer 12 to Kraft von Boyberg and to Franke von 
Koine, belong most probably to Eckehart; in fact, a 
manuscript discovered at Strasburg has the latter 's name 
and not Franke 's affixed to it, while a printed publica- 
tion of extracts from Eckehart's writings dated 1521 
contains the greater part of this sermon. 

There is still another exposition of the Pater nosier 
taken from a paper manuscript of the early fifteenth 
century which bears the title: This is the Pater noster 
with the Glossary of Meister Eckehart. 13 This exposi- 
tion differs from that given by Bach, 14 while neither 
agrees with the Latin version of the Cues manuscript. 
Besides the Lord's Prayer, Bach published an exposition 
on the verse Dominus dixit — the Lord hath said — and a 



"This treatise has been published by Birlinger as Meister Ecke- 
hart's. Alemannia, p. 15. 1875. 

12 In Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum VIII, pp. 238-251. 

13 Diz ist das pater noster myt der glozen Meister Eckhart. Zeit- 
schrift fur deutsche Philologie, p. 89. 1882. 

"Bach, op. cit, p. 233. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 35 

short treatise, "How the loving soul is a heaven." 15 
Preger contributes a treatise which he discovered in the 
library of Niirnberg : " On Contemplating God by Means 
of the Active Reason." 16 The most important addition 
to Pfeiffer's collection has been made by Sievers, 17 who 
found twenty-six sermons of Eckehart. Twenty of these 
he took from a parchment (Laud. Misc., 479, Bodleiana) 
dating from the close of the fourteenth century and 
which originally came from a Carthusian monastery near 
Mainz. This manuscript contains sixty-four German 
sermons with authors ' names appended ; thirty-one belong 
to Eckehart, eleven of which are given wholly or in part 
by Pfeiffer. The remaining six sermons are contained in 
a paper manuscript now in the royal library of Cassel 
(M.S. Theol., 4°, 94) dated 1470, but originally from the 
Church of St. Peter at Pritzlar. There are ten anony- 
mous sermons in this manuscript written in Eckehart 's 
style; three of these Pfeiffer published from other 
sources ; Delacroix 18 thinks that the six given by Sievers 
are part of the treatise "Von der sele werdikeit und 
eigenschaf t. ' ' Finally, Biittner, in his modern transla- 
tion of Eckehart 's sermons, embodies a new treatise 
"Vom zorne der sele" 19 taken mostly from a Berlin 
manuscript (Cod. germ, in quart., 191) and other parts 
from those of Niirnberg and St. Gall. 

Meister Eckehart is best known by his sermons. He 
was one of the first to preach in the churches of the 
Dominican nuns, to which the laity had access and 
whither they flocked in great numbers, drawn as much 
by the personality of the preacher as by the content 
of his sermons. Among the religious cities and towns of 
Germany in those days, Strasburg held a foremost rank ; 
all forms of piety were represented there, particularly 



15 Wie die minig sel em himel gotes ist genant. Ibid., p. 240. 

"Preger, op. cit. I, p. 484. 

17 Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum XV. 

18 Delacroix, op. cit., p. 178. 

"Biittner, op. cit., p. 178. 



36 MEISTER ECKEHART 

among the members of "the devout female sex." There 
were no fewer than seven convents of Dominican nuns 
in the city. It was to the priests of their Order that 
these religious looked for spiritual guidance. Only the 
most learned masters, the most distinguished theolo- 
gians, were selected to preach to the nuns. 20 The masters 
and the lectors naturally gave out in their sermons what 
they themselves had learnt, or what they were actually 
teaching in the schools. They did not lay aside their 
character of scholastics; in fact, this was not at all 
necessary, as is proved by the ordinances addressed in 
1290 by the provincial of Germany, Hermann of Minden, 
to the superiors of his province, in which he recommends 
that the word of God be often preached to the sisters 
"by learned brethren as became the erudition of the 
nuns." They were urged to present the sisters as pure 
spouses to Christ, to spur them on to stricter observance 
of enclosure, to die to themselves and to all things, and 
to strive after mystical union with God. In regard to 
this last which became more important in proportion as 
the preachers found the sisters well disposed, the ser- 
mons on the subject are styled mystical and the preach- 
ers mystics. Here is found the origin of that form of 
preaching peculiar to the Dominican mystics, which 
secured them their title of mystics, whereas their true 
character is that of scholastics. 21 

Then for the first time the nuns heard in their native 
tongue scholastic speculations on the nature of God, the 
blessed Trinity, the divine ideas, the relation of the uni- 
verse to God, human knowledge considered in itself and in 
relation to God, the ground of the soul, and the birth of 
the Son of God in the souls of the just. This is the 
subject matter which differentiates German mysticism 
from the mysticism of St. Bernard and the Victorines. 
In their sermons the mystics laid special stress on mystic 

20 Delacroix, op. cit., p. 143. 
21 Denifle, op. cit. II, p. 646. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 



37 



union with God, emphasizing the repose and quiet of the 
faculties rather than action. Perhaps none of them dis- 
coursed on such profound and abstruse thoughts as 
Meister Eckehart. That he often preached in the con- 
vents of Strasburg is proved by a poem of a Dominican 
nun, who recounts the merits of three preachers. These 
are "the worthy lector," whom she does not name, as he 
was known to all; the "great Meister Dietrich," who 
speaks exclusively of the beginning or origin; he aims to 
teach us the eagle's flight, to plunge our souls into the 
depths without depth; the third is the "wise Meister 
Eckehart. ' ' He speaks of Nothingness — whoever does not 
understand it has never experienced the divine illumina- 
tion. He preaches the doctrine of self-annihilation, of the 
uncreated life, of the absolute reality of being, and of 
contemplation which is lost, as it were, in this being. 22 
The very nature of these subjects caused him to be 
often misunderstood, not only by the common people but 
also by the more learned who either heard him or read 
his treatises. On one occasion when someone complained 
that so few understood his sermons, Eckehart replied: 
"Whoever wishes to understand my sermons must pos- 
sess five qualities. He ought to be victorious in all con- 



- 2 Der werde lesemeister 
der wil ir einer sin, 
er wil dy sele reizzen 
mit der minnen furbit. 
siner minen sticke 
dut er ir also heiz 
daz sy von recher minnen 
nuderniden enweiz. 
Scheiden abe. 

Der hdhe meister Diderich 
der wil vns machen fro, 
er sprachet lvterlichen 
al in principio. 
des adelares flvke 
wil er vns machen kunt, 
dy sele wil er versencken 
in den grunt ane grunt. 
Scheidet abe. 



Der wise meister Hechart 
wil vns von niche san: 
der des niden verstat, 
der mag ez gode clan. 
in den hat nit gelvchet 
des godeliche schin. 
Scheiden. 

Ich kan vch nit geduden 
waz man vch hat gesat. 
ir solet vch gar vernichen 
in der geschaffenheit. 
geit in daz ungeschaffen, 
verlisent vch selber gar, 
aldar hat sich ein kaffen 
al in des wesen gar. 
Scheiden. 



This poem has been published in its entirety by Hofler from a 
parchment in the library of Thun-Hohenstein. 



38 MEISTER ECKEHART 

flicts with self, to strive unceasingly after the highest 
good, to perform all things that God asks of him, to be 
a beginner in the spiritual life, to annihilate self, and 
never yield to anger." 23 He seems to have realized this 
difficulty for he often alludes to it. "There are many 
who do not understand this, and it does not surprise me, 
for to grasp this one must be detached from all things. ' m 
"For I tell you by the Eternal Truth: unless you your- 
selves correspond to the eternal truth of which we are 
speaking, you cannot understand me." 25 "Whoever does 
not comprehend this sermon, let him not trouble him- 
self about it." 26 

Eckehart had not a few difficulties to overcome in his 
sermons. He had to form his own language, so to speak. 
It was the first time that scholastic questions were not 
discussed in Latin, the language of the schools; new 
terms intelligible to all and conveying the scholastic ideas 
had to be coined. Eckehart really succeeded in con- 
structing a scientific language which was more fully 
developed in the following centuries. However, his desire 
to be intelligible led him to adopt an epigrammatic, 
antithetic style and to overlook the necessity of quali- 
fying phrases. This is one reason why he laid himself 
open to so many accusations of heresy. 27 The reader is 
often amazed at the vividness of his expressions. This 
he evinces by the direct questions and answers he fre- 
quently introduces into his sermons. In these he formu- 
lates any objection that might arise in the mind of his 
audience and answers it often with comparisons from 
every-day life. Thus wishing to give his hearers a clear 
idea of the expression, "Lord of Hosts," he reminds 
them of a lord surrounded by a great number of retain- 
ers ; not an unusual sight in those days of feudalism and 



23 Pfeiffer, 2. (Cod. Monac. germ. 365, Fol. 192b.) 

"Pfeiffer, 209, 29. 

2s Pfeiffer, 181, 19. 

2e Pfeiffer, 284, 28. 

"Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 150. New York. 1899. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 39 

chivalry. 28 To illustrate how God's work depends on 
the actual state of each individual soul, he makes use of 
the following comparison: "If some loaves of oaten 
bread, some of barley bread, some of rye bread, and some 
of wheaten bread are placed in a heated oven, although 
the heat is the same for all, yet it will produce of the 
one a very fine loaf of bread, a coarser loaf out of another, 
and a still coarser one out of a third. Thus does God's 
action vary according to the degree of preparation He 
finds in each soul." 29 The following example served to 
show how near the kingdom of God is to us: "If some 
clear water is poured into a clean vessel and a person 
gazes into it, he will find his countenance reflected in the 
clear, still water. In the same way can those who dwell 
in peace and concord, perceive God in this interior peace 
and calm. ' ,30 

Another feature of Eckehart's style is his way of pass- 
ing from the general to the particular, from the abstract 
to the concrete, and vice versa. The general statement 
that every power in nature seeks to reproduce itself, he 
elucidates by the particular example that his father's 
nature sought to reproduce a father; but being unable 
to do so, it produced that which resembles it in every 
respect and thus begot a son. 31 From the abstract ques- 
tion whether the angels who serve men on earth are less 
happy than those who are in heaven, he passes to the 
concrete example of a person always fully resigned to 
God's holy will. 32 What might be called the character- 
istic of Eckehart's German works is the insistent intru- 
sion of the personal element. One can hardly read a 
page without meeting such expressions as "but I say," 
"and I, Meister Eckehart," "I speak thus," "I have 
frequently said," etc. 



28 Biittner, op. cit., p. 4; Sievers, no. 2 in Zeitschrift fur deutsches 
Altertum, XV. 

28 Pfeiffer, 490, 4. 
30 Pfeiffer, 233, 12. 
31 Sievers, op. cit., no. 2. 
82 Pfeiffer, 311, 29. 



40 MEISTER ECKEHART 

A comparison of the German with the Latin works 
reveals the great difference between them. In the latter 
he is always careful to mention the author and often the 
work from which he cites ; whereas in the former, espe- 
cially in the sermons, he rarely gives any but a general 
designation; as, "so says a master," "a pagan master 
says to another master," etc, ; on the few occasions where 
he does name the author, he fails to give the work. The 
reason for this difference is that the sermons were 
addressed to a less learned, albeit a very devout assembly, 
than were those who either listened to or read the more 
scholarly Latin treatises. The writers whom Eckehart 
most frequently quotes are the Pseudo-Dionysius, 
Boethius, the Victorines, Albertus Magnus, Sts. Augus- 
tine, Ambrose, Isidore, Bernard, and Thomas, and Plato 
and Aristotle. Eckehart was well versed in the philoso- 
phy of his time; he was thoroughly familiar with the 
works of Aristotle and his Arabian commentators and 
with the treatises of St. Thomas. He is lauded by some 
as perhaps the greatest Aristotelian of his period; but 
Denifle has proved that he does not cite the Stagirite from 
the original, but from St. Thomas, and that his erudition 
in no wise surpasses that of the average scholastic of the 
period. 

In some of his sermons Eckehart returned to the older 
form of preaching, the homily, taking the Gospel and 
explaining it verse by verse, often giving it a mystical 
interpretation. At other times his text was a short say- 
ing from the Gospel or the Epistle or from some part 
of the liturgy of the Mass. 33 Notwithstanding their 
defects, his sermons abound in high and prolific thoughts 
which inflamed not only the receptive minds of his hear- 
ers, but indirectly through the seeds which they scat- 
tered broadcast produced for later generations an 
abundant spiritual harvest. Never in the succeeding 

33 See sermons on Luke 1:26; John XV: 11; Wisdom XVIII -14- 
Heb. XI: 37. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 41 

centuries could the Church in Germany again boast of a 
preacher who was at the same time so bold and profound 
a thinker and of such an original cast of mind as Meister 
Eckehart. 34 It was his spirit that paved the way for 
future mysticism in the Fatherland and the most noted 
mystics like Tauler and Blessed Henry Suso are in the 
strictest sense of the word Eckehart 's disciples. 

If the German works alone are consulted one must 
necessarily conclude that Eckehart was only a mystic 
and as such had little in common with the scholastics. 
Hence to obtain a correct view of Eckehart it is of pri- 
mary importance that his Latin works be brought into 
connection with the German writings, as these latter 
often depend on the former for their complete elucida- 
tion. In the Latin treatises Eckehart shows himself a 
true disciple of St. Thomas and a genuine schoolman. In 
attempting the following outline of his doctrine, quota- 
tions from the Latin and the German works are brought 
together whenever this is possible, and where one is the 
complement of the other. On account of the fragmentary 
state of the Latin writings accessible, it has not been 
possible to draw on them for the last chapters of his 
doctrine, these have had to be taken entirely from the 
German sermons and treatises. 



34 Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter, p. 383. 



CHAPTEE IV 

THE NATURE, UNITY, AND TRINITY OF GOD 

The fundamental proposition of Eckehart's doctrine 
may be summed up in the statement: "Esse est Deus" — 
God is being. Everywhere in his Latin and German works 
he repeats this proposition, "God is being/' or "God 
and being are the same" — Deus et esse idem. This is 
also the first proposition he lays down in the Prologue 
to the Opus tripartitwn. 1 l ' God is pure being. ' ' 2 ' i Being 
is His first name." 3 This proposition is more fully 
developed in the introduction to the Opus propositionum. 
"Whether we ask what God is or who He is, the answer 
is always — being." 4 Commenting on the text, "Behold 
I send my angel" (Luke VII, 27) Eckehart interprets 
the "I" to signify God's being, that God alone is. 5 Here 
he teaches with St. Thomas that "He who is" is the 
name most properly applied to God ; for, in the first place, 
it indicates simple existence, and secondly, as it indicates 
no mode of being, it names the vast extent of substance. 6 
Thus the proposition esse est Deus forms the essential 
element in the argument for the existence of God. 

But how are we to understand this being which is God? 
It is for Eckehart, as for the scholastics, an "esse purum 
et plenum" 7 — the purity and plenitude of being. "In 
God there is neither number, nor multitude, nor negation ; 
but pure affirmation, the plenitude of being: 'I am who 
am.' " 8 "All things are in God and of God; for out of 
Him and without Him there is nothing." 9 Negation 
asserts nothing; . . . therefore negation has no 



ir The Erfurt manuscript, col. 3, as given in Archiv II. 

2 Pfeiffer, 527, 12; 263, 7. 

3 Pfeiffer, 263, 10; 108, 28. 

"Erfurt, col. 6. 

'Pfeiffer, 162, 37; 163, 2. 

°St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. XIII. a. 11. 

7 Erfurt, cols. 138, 139. 

8 Erfurt, cols. 128, 52; Pfeiffer, 276, 35. 

9 Pfeiffer, 162, 38; 169, 19. 



42 



MEISTER ECKEHART 43 

place in God, for He is who is. ' m Since God is His own 
existence, is absolute being, there can be no accidental 
qualities in God. 11 Hence Eckehart continues, "Acci- 
dent has no place in God. In Himself he is a pure being, 
where there is neither this nor that, for all that is in 
God, is God." 12 "The 'I' indicates a subject without any 
accident, besides accident of itself passes into substance. 
The reason is that the same being is in the subject of 
every accident with the very being of the subject. But in 
the first place being is substance itself; therefore, every 
accident in God passes into substance." 13 

With the scholastics, however, Eckehart excepts only 
relation and says : "And thus there remain only two pre- 
dicaments in the Deity, substance and relation." 14 "The 
*F signifies pure substance, but pure without any acci- 
dent, without anything else; substance without quality 
and without this or that form. But this pertains to God 
and to Him alone, who is above accident, above species, 
above genus; and of Him alone is it said." 15 Thus we 
come to know what Eckehart understands by purum esse. 
In creatures composed of matter and form, the nature 
is not the same as the individual whose existence is caused 
by some exterior agent; hence in creatures essence and 
existence must differ ; 16 but in God, the first efficient 
Cause, it is impossible that existence should differ from 
essence. This truth Eckehart shows clearly in his com- 
mentary on the scriptural text, "I am who am." "The 
'am' is predicated of a proposition that says, 'I am'; and 
secundum adiacens because as often as it is expressed, it 
signifies pure and simple being in the subject, and con- 
cerning the subject, and is itself the subject ; . . . it is 
evident that the same essence and being pertain to God 

:o Erfurt, cols. 78, 52. 

xl St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. III. a. 6. 

12 Pfeiffer, 99, 19. 

"Erfurt, col. 58. 

"Erfurt, col. 58; Pfeiffer, 608, 10. 

"Erfurt, col. 52; Archiv II, pp. 437-438. 

16 St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. III. a. 3, 4. 



44 MEISTER ECKEHART 

alone, whose essence, as Avicenna says, is His existence. 
He has not essence apart from existence which denotes 
being." 17 "As in every creature the being which it has 
from another is one thing, and the essence which it has 
not from another is something else; therefore there is 
one question concerning the existence of being, and an- 
other question (what it is) concerning the essence or 
nature of the thing itself. Wherefore, to him who asks 
what is man or what is an angel, it is stupid to answer, a 
human being or an angelic being. But concerning God, 
whose existence is His very essence (quidditas), it is 
proper to answer the question who or what is God, with — 
God is ; for the being of God is His essence. " 18 

Not only is God alone properly being, but because He 
is being, Eckehart states in common with the scholastics, 
that He is necessarily one, true, and good. "In His being- 
there is nothing but the contentment of unity." 19 "Who- 
ever tends toward anything that is not God, cannot enter 
into the unity of God." 20 "This unity is a negation of 
negation, because it is attributed to God who alone is the 
first being and the plenitude of being, of whom nothing 
can be denied and in whom every being pre-existed and is 
included." 21 

Of the next attribute, that of truth, Eckehart says: 
"God is truth, and all that is in time, or all that God ever 
created, is not the truth." 22 "What creatures really are, 
that they are in God, and therefore God alone is in the 
truth; and therefore the 'I' (I shall send my angel) de- 
notes the essence of divine truth." 23 "The intellect will 
never rest save in the substantial truth which includes 
all things." 24 



17 Erfurt, col. 52. 
18 Erfurt, col. 53. 
"Preiffer, 533, 30. 
20 Pfeiffer, 525, 30; 524, 30. 
21 Erfurt, col. 6; Pfeiffer, 322, 15-23. 
-Pfeiffer, 57, 33. 
23 Pfeiffer, 162, 40. 
24 Pfeiffer, 21, 10. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 45 

Not only is God one and true, but He is likewise good. 
In affirmation of God's goodness, Eckehart cites first Pro- 
clus and then St. Augustine as follows: "And Proclus 
says in the twelfth proposition, 'the principle and the 
first cause of every being is goodness. ' To this he adds 
that Dionysius lays down good as the first name of God ; 
and St. Augustine (On the Trinity VIII, 3) says : 'Regard 
good itself, if thou canst ; so wilt thou see God, not good 
by a good that is other than Himself, but the good of all 
good.' " 23 Eckehart frequently refers in his sermons to 
the goodness of God. "The soul is so attracted to good- 
ness, that God must occasionally conceal Himself. . . . 
If that good which is God, were immediately and con- 
tinually revealed to the soul, it could not turn away from 
it to inform the body." 26 "Nothing is good but God 
alone." 27 "For no one is good or possesses any goodness 
but from Him alone." 28 "When our divine Redeemer 
told the faithful servant to enter into the joy of his Lord 
and that He would place him over all His goods, He 
really meant : Go out from all created goodness, and 
out of all divided goodness, and out of all complex good- 
ness. I shall place thee above all this in the uncreated, 
undivided, and simple goodness, which I am myself." 29 
"Goodness is a garment under which God is concealed. 
. . . If there were no goodness in God, my will should 
not desire Him." 30 "Do not love this or that good, rather 
love goodness for the sake of goodness; for all things 
are desirable or joyful only in the proportion in which 
God dwells in them. . . . Love Him for the goodness 
which He is in Himself." 31 

Since God is not only the plenitude of being but being 
itself, in whom every being pre-existed and is included, 

25 Erfurt, col. 7. 
26 Pfeiffer, 17, 28. 
27 Pfeiffer, 184, 33. 
^Pfeiffer, 188, 4. 
2fl Pfeiffer, 188, 16. 
30 Pfeiffer, 270, 34. 
31 Pfeiffer, 197, 21. 



46 MEISTER ECKEHART 

Eckeliart excludes every non-being from God and there- 
fore every imperfection. Hence lie naturally passes from 
the idea of plenitude to that of the infinity of God. ' ' God 
is infinite truth, and goodness, and infinite being." 32 
Since God is infinite perfection He is also immutable. 
"With God there is neither change nor shadow of altera- 
tion. For every change is a shadow of His being." 33 In 
the treatise on Detachment Eckehart has a fine passage 
on the immutability of God. "When something occurs, a 
fact which God foresaw from all eternity, then people 
imagine that God has changed. When He is angry with 
us or confers on us some benefit, it is we who change, but 
He remains unchanged; just as the sunlight remains the 
same although it may injure weak eyes and strengthen 
healthy ones. God does not look out into time, neither 
does anything new take place in His sight. . . . No 
new will ever arose in God; even if creation was not 
always what it is now, it was from eternity in God and in 
His intellect." 34 "It is God's attribute to remain un- 
changed in His simple being," 35 "whose property is im- 
mutability, whereas creatures are subject to measure, and 
number, and change." 36 "God with whom there is no 
change is above motion and time. ' m 

There is no motion in God because in Him there is no 
potentiality, only actuality; God is actus purus — pure 
actuality. "The work of God is His being." 38 "Being 
inasmuch as it is first and immobile is at rest, because 
immobile being is prior to mobile being. On the other 
hand, being as it is supreme and consequently perfect, is 
unmoved and at rest, for motion is an act of imperfec- 
tion; but in God there is no imperfection. He is the 
plenitude of being." 39 "Without lapse of time, in an 



32 Erfurt, col. 71. 

83 Erfurt, col. 122. 

"Pfeiffer, 488, 7. 

35 Pfeiffer, 225, 20. 

S6 Erfurt, col. 157; Pfeiffer, 321, 8. 

S7 Pfeiffer, 133, 26. 

88 Erfurt, col. 35. 

39 Erfurt, col. 32. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 47 

instant, God accomplishes all that He does; whereas in 
the case of secondary agents, motion and time are in- 
volved." 40 "With God, whose power is His act, action 
and effect are simultaneous." 41 The Cues codex em- 
phasizes still more strongly that potentiality and act 
do not differ in God. "In all things out of God, sub- 
stance and potentiality, being and act, differ. 
Every being, except the intellect and outside the intellect, 
is a creature, is creatable, differs from God, and is not 
God; for in God actuality and potentiality do not differ, 
which they invariably do in created being. But being, or 
the first act, is the first division; in the intellect, in 
God, there is no division. ' M2 Therefore, since God is pure 
actuality and since He is immutable, He is removed from 
every potentiality, a truth which St. Thomas expresses 
with as much force as simplicity: "Everything which is 
in any way changed, is in some way a potentiality. Hence 
it is evident that it is impossible for God to be in any 
way changeable." 43 

As a consequence of this principle the divine genera- 
tion itself must be without motion, which Ecke- 
hart states thus : ' ' There is another word which is 
unspoken and unthought, and which never comes forth, 
but which remains eternally in Him who utters it. In 
the Father who utters it, it is an emanation and at the 
same time it is immanent." 44 It is therefore only in a 
metaphorical sense "that we attribute matter, form, and 
work to God on account of the grossness of our senses." 45 
To illustrate this transference of motion to God, Eckehart 
makes use of the same example as St. Thomas, namely, 
that of the builder. "Looking at a house from the point 
of view of the builder, it is, as it were, the result of his 



"Erfurt, col. 34. 

"Erfurt, col. 32. 

"The Cues manuscript, Archiv II, p. 677. 

43 Summa, 1 p. qu. IX, a. 1. 

"Pfeiffer, 272, 1. 

45 Pfeiffer, 513, 9; cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. IX, a. 1. 



48 MEISTER ECKEHART 

own action, for the act proceeds from him as an activity ; 
but from the point of view of the material used, the house 
is passive ; for it is in the nature of these two genera — 
activity and passivity — that the one is contained in the 
other and that they both form one thing : simultaneously 
they come into existence and simultaneously they pass 
away. ' M6 

Since God is immutable and since He is above all time 
and number, He is therefore in an eternal now. Hence 
when speaking of that power in the soul by which God 
draws it to Himself, Eckehart says: "God is in this 
power as in an eternal now. If the spirit were always 
united to God by this power, man would never grow old. 
Because the now in which God created the first man, and 
the now in which the last human being will pass away, as 
well as the now in which I am speaking, are all alike in 
God and form only one now."* 7 "If I take a portion of 
time, it is either yesterday or today. But if I take now it 
will include all time." 48 This eternal now has here the 
same significance that it has for St. Thomas, who states 
that the now that stands still, is said to make eternity 
according to our comprehension. 49 "Since God dwells 
unmoved in this eternal now, the soul that considers time 
and place and number, is in a bad state and far removed 
from God." 50 "Past and future as such are not in God 
nor God in them. ' ' 51 

God's infinite perfection and being so far transcend all 
that finite reason can comprehend, that Eckehart often 
describes God's being negatively and hence exposes his 
doctrine to misinterpretation and heresy. "The first 
and simple being is properly known by negatives." 52 
' ' God is better than one can think, and I add, God is some- 

46 Erfurt, col. 133. 

47 Pfeiffer, 44, 10; 164, 20; 268, 18; also Erfurt, col. 12. 

48 Pfeiffer, 268, 16. 

49 St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. X, a, 2, ad. 1. 

60 Pfeiffer, 266, 11, 32. 

"Erfurt, col. 94. Sievers, op. cit, p. 413. 

52 Erfurt, cols. 79, 49. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 49 

thing I know not what ; He is all that it is better to be than 
not to be. . He is above all that we can desire. 

When I preached in Paris I said, and I could well afford 
to say it: All the learned men of Paris conld not compre- 
hand what God is in the smallest creature, yea, not even in 
a fly. But I say now, that the whole world cannot grasp 
it. All that can be thought of God, He is not. That which 
God is in Himself, no one can know, unless he be lifted 
up into the light which is God Himself." 53 "In God there 
is neither good, nor better, nor best. Whoever says that 
God is good, wrongs Him as much as he does who should 
call the sun black." 54 This last citation contains almost 
verbatim the twenty-eighth proposition condemned by 
John XXII as heretical. 55 But when it is compared with 
the following quotation it assumes a different meaning. 
"God is nameless, for no one can say or know anything 
about Him. In this sense a pagan master said: What- 
ever we know or say about the First Cause pertains more 
to ourselves than to the First Cause, for He transcends 
all words and all knowledge. If I then say God is good, 
it is not true ; I am good, God is not good ! I shall proceed 
further — I am better than God! For only what is good 
can be better ; and since God is not better, He cannot be 
the best. Far from God are these three determinations, 
good, better, best ; He is above all this. If I continue and 
add, God is wise, it is not true ; I am wiser than He is ! 
And if I still say, God is a being, it is not true; He is 
a transcendent being and a supra-existing nothingness! 
. Therefore, be silent and prate no more about 
God." 56 

In accordance with Eckehart's doctrine, God is the most 
absolutely simple being and this to such an extent that 
every distinction is excluded from Him; in God "is" and 



e3 Pfeiffer, 169, 25. 
"Pfeiffer, 269, 18. 

55 Quod deus non est bonus neque melior neque optimus; ita male 
dico, q'uandocunque voco deum bonum, ac si ego album vocarem nigrum. 
56 Pfeiffer, 318, 31; 268, 37. 



50 MEISTER ECKEHART 

"is not" are identical. Nevertheless, Eckehart differen- 
tiates between the Godhead and God. By the Godhead he 
understands the abiding potentiality of being, containing 
within itself all distinction as yet undeveloped. "When 
I dwelt in the ground and depth, in the stream and source 
of the Godhead, nobody asked me whither I was going 
or what I was doing, for there was no one who could 
have asked me. Only after I emanated thence did all 
creatures proclaim God to me. . . . Thus all creatures 
speak of God ; and why do they not speak of the Godhead! 
All that is in God is one, and of that nothing can be said. 
Only God acts, the Godhead does not act; there is no 
operation there. God and Godhead differ as doing and 
non-doing. ' ' 57 Eckehart represents the Godhead as an 
eternal immutable calm — "He dwells in a stillness which 
transcends every form," 58 in which there is no activity. 
' ' Therefore, the soul can be perfectly happy only by cast- 
ing itself into the formless Godhead, where there is 
neither operation nor image, and by losing and burying 
itself in this desert," 59 in which, as it were, God is con- 
cealed from and unknown to Himself, whereas in the 
Trinity He reveals Himself as a living light. 60 

The Latin writings of Eckehart that have come down 
to us contain very little on the Trinity. In regard to this 
fundamental mystery his teaching is as follows : ' ' There 
are two predicates in God, substance and a reflection, 
which is called relation. Now the masters say, that the 
Father's essence does not produce the Son in the God- 
head, because the Father according to His nature be- 
holds all things in His pure essence, and He sees Himself 
therein with all His power, without the Son and 
without the Holy Ghost, He sees only the unity of His 
essence. But when the Father wishes to have a reflection 
of Himself in another person, then He brings forth the 

B7 Pfeiffer, 181, 4; 281, 20; 234, 21. 
58 Biittner, op. cit, p. 187. 
89 Pfeiffer, 242, 1. 
60 Pfeiffer, 499, 14. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 51 

Son in this reflection ; since He is so rejoiced at this reflec- 
tion, and since all joy has been His eternally, therefore, 
this reflection must be eternal. Hence the Son is as eter- 
nal as the Father ; and this pleasure which the Father and 
the Son mutually enjoy is the Holy Spirit ; as this love be- 
tween the Father and the Son has been eternal, therefore 
the Holy Spirit is as eternal as the Father and the Son. 
The three persons have but one essence, but are different 
as regards the persons ; for the person of the Father was 
never the person of the Son nor that of the Holy Ghost. 
All three are distinct in regard to the persons and are 
nevertheless one in their essence." 61 "In God there are but 
two predicates, substance and relation ; substance by rea- 
son of its being is not diffusive ; it exists only for itself 
and for nothing else and it considers being only in rela- 
tion to itself. ... As the saints and doctors express 
it, essence does not generate in the Divinity. For the 
doctors ordinarily say that the cause of generation is 
not essence but essence and relation. But to decide which 
is really prior in time is a difficult question. Hence rela- 
tion is necessary, because of its diffusion and fecundity 
in the Divinity. And this is what Boethius says: the 
essence contains the unity, but the relation expresses 
itself in the Trinity. . m . For the Father did not 
utter the Word or generate the Son forasmuch as He is 
essence or substance, but inasmuch as He is the begin- 
ning. This is generally interpreted that the Word was 
in the beginning, that is in the Father. But beginning 
as the first, denotes relation of order and origin. For in 
Be Causis it is said, the first being is self-sufficient. 
Primum, not prius, because by reason of the relation or 
order God possesses diffusion or fecundity as much in 
the Divinity as in creatures." 62 

This same doctrine Eckehart repeats continually in 
many places of his sermons and treatises; thus he ex- 



61 Pfeiffer, 608, 10. 
62 Erfurt, cols. 58, 59. 



52 MEISTER ECKEHART 

pounds the text of St. John, "I saw the Word in God": 
' i God is pnre being, pnre intellect ; He knows Himself in 
Himself. St. John means that the Son is in the nature of 
the Father. 'I saw the Word in God;' there he signifies 
that the intellect which is eternal in God, proceeded from 
God in a distinction of persons, which is the Son. 'I saw 
the Word before God;' that is, that the Son is eternally 
born of the Father and is an image of Him." 63 That 
there must necessarily be more than one person in God, 
he explains as follows : ' i Their eternal origin is the 
Father, and the idea of all things in Him is the Son, the 
love for this idea or image is the Holy Ghost. Hence if 
the Framer of all things had not dwelt eternally in the 
Father, the Father could not have created. This is said 
on account of the infinite power of the Father; hence 
there must be more than one person, because all creatures 
emanated in the eternal emanation of the Son and not of 
themselves." 64 

Among the condemned articles there are two that relate 
to the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. "God is one in 
every way and according to every, idea, so that it would 
be impossible to find in Him anything like number, either 
within or without His intellect. He who sees two or a 
distinction does not see God, for God is one beyond and 
above number, nor does He compare in number with any- 
one. Therefore, there can be no difference between being 
and being understood." 65 This last proposition taken 
from the Exposition on Exodus forms the twenty-third 
condemned article, 66 as it does away with the distinction 
of the three Divine Persons. A similar error is con- 



63 Pfeiffer, 527, 12; 530, 14. Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum, VIII, 
p. 241. 

84 Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift fur deutches Altertum VIII, p. 248; Erfurt, 
col. 97. 

e5 Cues manuscript, Archiv II, p. 683. 

6C Deus est unus omnibus modis et secundum omnem rationem, ita 
ut in ipso non sit invenire aliquam multitudinem in intellectu vel 
extra intellectum; qui enim duo videt vel distinctionem videt, deum non 
videt, deus enim unus est extra numerum et supra numerum, nee ponit 
in unum cum aliquo. Sequitur: nulla igitur distinctio in ipso deo esse 
potest aut intelligi. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 53 

tained in the twenty-fourth article : t ' Every distinction is 
foreign to God and is found neither in His nature nor in 
His persons; this is proved by the fact that His very 
nature is one and the same, and each person is one and the 
same as His nature." 67 Here is an instance of Eckehart 's 
extravagant and unsystematic thinking which led him to 
deny the plurality of persons in God. 

In summing up Eckehart's doctrine on the nature, 
unity, and Trinity of God we note, that "esse est Deus" — 
God is being — is the fundamental proposition on which 
he bases his theology, a proposition which no scho- 
lastic before his time used so extensively. This Divine 
Being is with Eckehart, as with the scholastics, an 
esse purum et plenum — the purity and plenitude of 
being, in whom there are but two predicaments, substance 
and relation. God, because He is pure being, is neces- 
sarily one, true and good; and because He is the pleni- 
tude of being, there can be no imperfection in Him, there- 
fore, no motion. He is, consequently, pure actuality; in 
Him actuality and potentiality do not differ. If Eckehart 
is anywhere a scholastic it is in his doctrine of the Blessed 
Trinity. The Father is unbegotten; the Son is generated 
by the Father because He proceeds from the Father by 
way of intelligible action and of similitude, for the concept 
of the intellect is a likeness or an image of the object con- 
ceived ; hence the Son is called by Eckehart the Word and 
the Image. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father 
and the Son not by way of generation but of procession, as 
spirit. He is the mutual love of the Father and the Son ; 
hence Eckehart applies the names of love and gift to the 
Holy Spirit. 68 As regards their essence the three Divine 
Persons from one unity free from every distinction, 
whereas their relation expresses itself in the Trinity. No 
other doctrine appears so frequently in the German 



67 0mnis distinctio est a deo aliena, neque in natura neque In 
personis; probatur: quia natura ipsa est una et hoc unum, et quelibet 
persona est una et id ipsum unum, quod natura. 

68 Pfeiffer, 265, 31; 146, 6; 365, 25; 132, 3. 



54 MEISTER ECKEHART 

works. There is hardly a sermon or a treatise in which 
reference is not made to the Blessed Trinity, either in 
connection with the nature of the soul or with Eckehart 's 
favorite topic — the divine generation in the soul of the 
just. 

Thus on all essential points Eckehart is a true scholas- 
tic, as to both content and formulae. But he is also a 
mystic, this more particularly in the German writings, 
where he almost invariably adds several mystical inter- 
pretations to the scholastic teaching, whether he speaks of 
the nature of God, of His unity, of the Trinity, of His 
goodness, His immutability or any other divine perfec- 
tion. It is, moreover, in accord with the nature of mystic 
intuition that transcending the attributes and relations 
of God, Eckehart should seek to penetrate into His very 
being, even to differentiate between God and Godhead. 
When speaking of the goodness of God it was noted how 
his love of paradoxes led him into error, unconsciously, 
it is true, as parallel passages prove. At other times 
it is his unsystematic thinking as well as his somewhat 
obscure style that are the causes of his heterodoxy. Thus 
he carries the doctrine of the unity of God to the extreme 
of denying the plurality and the distinction of the Divine 
Persons. 



CHAPTER V 

THE CBEATIOET 

1. The Divine Ideas 

Eckehart's doctrine of the causes or ideas of creatures 
follows scholastic teaching in general. He admits a 
twofold being in creatures : ' ' Every creature has one 
being in its original cause, that is in the word of God, 
. . . and another being in the things of nature where 
each has its peculiar form. The first is virtual being, the 
other formal being which is generally weak and change- 
able. ,n "All things are nobler in God than they are in 
themselves," 2 because the virtual being of anything, 
namely that which it has in God, is more elevated and 
excellent than its formal being or the source of its 
actuality. 3 

What Eckehart understands by the virtual being of 
creatures, he clearly points out in the following: "The 
effect always pre-exists in its essential cause; and the 
simpler, the more uniform, and the more unique a thing 
is, the higher is its cause." 4 "For all things are intellec- 
tually in God as in their First Cause and Creator. Hence 
they cannot have their formal being unless an efficient 
cause draws them forth by giving them a real existence." 5 
This ideal existence or prototype of things in God is ren- 
dered more intelligible by the fact that the mind usually 
possesses some preconceived image of the object not as 
it actually is, but as it appears in the intellect. The fa- 
vorite example of the schoolmen to illustrate this truth is 
that of the architect or builder, who aims at making the 
material house resemble as closely as possible the image 
that exists in his intellect. It is in this sense that Ecke- 



a Erfurt, col. 20. 

2 Pfeiffer, 530, 8; 321, 14. 

3 Erfurt, col. 22. 

4 Erfurt, col. 27; cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. IV., a 2. 

"Erfurt, col. 90. 



55 



56 MEISTER ECKEHART 

hart continues: "When God created the world . 
He created all things according to the active intellect of 
His Being ; hence there must have been an eternal idea or 
prototype in the Divine intelligence according to which 
God created all things. ' ,6 Hence also: "Everything is 
hidden and latent in its cause;" 7 and, therefore, "things 
in Him are the causes of things actually existing." 8 "The 
cause of a thing is prior to and more excellent than the 
thing itself, because it is the beginning and the cause of 
it. Hence 'in the beginning was the Word.' The Greek 
has \6yos, the Latin ratio or idea; this cause is always 
prior to the thing itself, and the thing does not include 
the cause but the cause includes the thing." 9 

Eckehart repeatedly speaks of the Word as the ratio 
rei — the cause of things. ' ' God uttered a word, that was 
the knowledge of Himself or the Son. With that eternal 
knowledge He knew all things and understood how to 
create them out of nothing, which they are in themselves. 
But while they were eternally in Him they were not 
individual existences . . . He was. For God can 
be God only and nothing else. Therefore, all creatures 
are a light, because they are known in the light of unity 
and of eternity. Therefore, too, all creatures emanate 
as a light to reveal the hidden light." 10 "When God cre- 
ated the world He did not look without for the ideas of 
creation. This is then the origin, the cause, as it is called, 
of ideas according to which God created, contemplating 
nothing from without. . . . Hence the saints com- 
monly explain that in the beginning God created heaven 
and earth, that is in the Son who is the image and cause 
of ideas; whoever denies this, denies the Son of God. 
Thus God in the beginning created all things, that is in 
the cause and according to the ideal cause. ,m " The bright 

6 Pfeiffer, 325, 23; 326, 11; cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. XV, a. 1. 

7 Erfurt, cols. 68, 16. Pfeiffer, 333, 10. 

"Erfurt, col. 90; Pfeiffer, 529, 18. 

e Erfurt, col. 67; cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. VIII, a. 1. 

"Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum, VIII, p. 239. 

"Erfurt, col. 12. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 57 

mirror of eternity is the eternal intellect of the Father. 
In this the Father forms an image of Himself, the Son, in 
whom all things are reflected, but not as creatures, for 
nothing is there but God in God." 12 

It is evident that Eckehart identifies the Word with the 
divine ideas and as the Word is eternal, so also are the 
ideas eternal. This he distinctly teaches in many places. 
"All things emanated in the eternal emanation of the 
Son from the Father.' m Here, Denifle says, 14 is the an- 
swer to the older scholastics who ask, whether the Word 
connotes some effect in creatures. Eckehart, in fact, 
says: "The Father's utterance produced the Word and 
creatures." 15 "The Father spoke one word, that was the 
Son. But in that one word He spoke all things. ' n6 

The ideas are not, according to Eckehart, the realiza- 
tions of a divine will, an arbitrary creation of God ; they 
are the eternal thoughts of God and therefore uncreated 
like God Himself. "The causes of creatures are not 
creatures, nor are they creatable as such, for they are 
ante rem and post rem^ they are the original causes of 
the things themselves." 17 Here Eckehart differs essen- 
tially from Eriugena in identifying the Word with the 
divine ideas, and, consequently, considering them as un- 
created. Eriugena, on the contrary, does not recognize the 
second nature, that is the aggregate of ideas in the Divine 
Word, in so far as they are primordial causes, as the Sec- 
ond Person of the Blessed Trinity. He asserts that the 
Son is begotten from all eternity ; from all eternity, too, 
the primordial causes were made — natura quae creatur 
et creat. Preger states that Eckehart teaches the crea- 
tion of the ideal world out of nothing, and therefore time 
begins with the creation of the ideal world. 18 But Ecke- 



12 Pfeiffer, 378, 37; Erfurt, cols. 12, 13. 

13 Pfeiffer Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Altertum VIII, p. 248; Erfurt, 
cols. 12, 14. 

"Denifle, op. cit, II, p. 464. 

"Erfurt, col. 69. 

16 Sievers, Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Altertum XV, p. 414. 

"Erfurt, col. 90. 

18 Preger, op. cit, pp. 392-395. 



58 MEISTER ECKEHART 

hart in reality asserts the contrary doctrine. The ideas 
are eternal and time begins only with the creation of the 
exterior world, that is the world of reality. 

2. The Creation of the World 
In the Prologue to the Opus trip art iturn 19 Eckehart 
gives four different interpretations of the scriptural text 
"In the beginning God created heaven and earth" (Gen. 
I. 1) namely: (1) God and God alone created heaven 
and earth, that is the highest and the lowest, consequently 
all things. (2) He created in the beginning, that is, in 
Himself. (3) He certainly created in the past and is 
nevertheless always in the beginning of creation. (4) 
Creation and every work of God was in the very begin- 
ning of creation at once perfect and complete. 

As regards the first interpretation, that God created 
all things, Eckehart teaches : ' ' Creation is a collection of 
being; and it is not necessary to add out of nothing, be- 
cause before being there is only nothing." 20 "God cre- 
ated the world and all things in the world." 21 "In the 
second place it is said, that He created in the beginning, 
that is in Himself. . . . Creation gives or confers 
being. But being is the beginning and the first before 
which and without which there is nothing. " 22 " The First 
Cause produces every effect of Himself and in Himself. 
The reason is that apart from the First Cause there is 
nothing. . . . It is evident that every creature of 
itself and in itself is created by God and in God. " 23 " Cre- 
ation is something produced from nothing. As a man 
is made from a non-man and being in general from non- 
being, and what is opposed in nature from its opposite ; 
so the creation by the first and highest Agent necessarily 
produces a simple being from a simple non-being. ' ' 24 

J9 Erfurt, col. 4. 
20 Erfurt, cols. 4, 14. 

2, Sievers, op. cit, p. 386; Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum 
VIII, p. 239. 

22 Erfurt, cols. 4, 14. 

23 Erfurt, col. 73; Pfeiffer, 528, 33. 

24 Erfurt, col. 91; cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. XLV, a. 1. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 59 

For the significance of the ex nihilo — out of nothing — 
Eckehart follows St. Thomas, who states that the ex does 
not signify the material cause but only the order, "by 
stating the relation between what is now and its previous 
non-existence." 25 This is Eckehart 's meaning when he 
observes: "But God and He alone produces all things 
out of nothing and not from something else that was prior 
thereto." 26 "The nothing we were before coming into 
existence, was in need of nothing and withstood all cre- 
ated being; the Divine power which alone is above all 
things, gave motion to the nothing when God created all 
things out of nothing. ' m 

As omnipotent power alone could produce being out of 
nothing, in the same way omnipotence alone can preserve 
creatures in their being. ' ' The First Cause, which is God, 
exerts its influence no less by preserving the effect in 
being than by bringing it into being ; and conversely, the 
effect, although complete, depends on the First Cause no 
less for its continuation than for its existence." 28 As 
Eckehart assigns paternity to God as a characteristic 
belonging to the Creator of all things, so does he also 
assign maternity to Him, because from Him all creatures 
receive their being and are preserved in being; hence 
whatever falls away from God falls necessarily into noth- 
ingness. 29 In this he again follows St. Thomas 30 who 
teaches that no creature could subsist for a moment if 
not kept in being by the operation of Divine power, and 
like him uses the example of a builder, "who is not the 
cause of the being of the house, but the cause that the 
house is built." 31 "As soon as a house is constructed 
the builder leaves it, since he is not the immediate cause 
of the house, for he takes the materials from nature ; but 



25 St. Thomas. 1 p. qu. XLV, a. 1, ad. 3. 

26 Erfurt, col. 144. 

2T Pfeiffer, 509, 29. 

28 Erfurt, cols. 73, 74. 

29 Pfeiffer, 610, 29; Erfurt, col. 132. 

30 St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. CIV, a. 1. 

31 Erfurt, col. 133. 



60 MEISTER ECKEHART 

God gives immediately to the creature all that it is, both 
matter and form, and therefore He must remain in the 
creature else it would fall away from its being." 32 

That very part of Eckehart's system where clearness 
is most needed to avoid error, is unfortunately the most 
obscure — the immanence of God in creatures. In speak- 
ing of the nature of God, Eckehart teaches that in God 
esse et essentia — being and essence — are identical, where- 
as in creatures they differ : " In every creature the being 
is that which it receives from another ; the essence which 
it has not from another is something different." 33 This 
esse he considers as something abstract; it is not clear 
whether or not he regards it as identical with the divine 
esse. This uncertainty causes a great divergence of 
opinion as to whether Eckehart is a pantheist or not. 
Preger will not admit any pantheism in Eckehart's doc- 
trine concerning the creation. 34 In direct opposition to 
him is Ch. Schmidt who asserts: "Meister Eckehart 
speaks not only of an ideal existence of things in the 
Divine intellect, but also of a real objective being of 
things in the very being of God, or rather of the absolute 
unity of being : that is to say, he teaches the identity of 
God and the world. . . m He thus establishes the most 
absolute pantheism in his double but identical expression : 
'God is all and all is God.' " 35 Several modern students 
of Eckehart, such as Grabmann, 36 von Hiigel, 37 Langen- 
berg, 38 and Lichtenberger 39 agree with the conclusion 
drawn by Denifle, 40 whose argument is outlined as fol- 

32 Pfeiffer, 611, 1. 

83 Erfurt, cols. 53, 90. 

34 Preger, op. cit., p. 396. 

"Schmidt, op. cit, p. 266. 

38 Grabmann, Die Lehre des hi. Thomas von der Scintilla Animae. 
Jahrbuch fur Philosophic und speculative Theologie p. 414. Paderborn, 
1900. 

37 Von Hiigel, The Mystical Element of Religion II, p. 317. London, 
1909. 

38 Langenberg, Quellen und Porschungen zur Geschichte der 
deutschen Mystik, p. 182. Bonn, 1902. 

89 Lichtenberger, Le Mysticisme allemand. Revue des Cours et Con- 
ferences, p. 443. Paris, 1910. 

40 Among those who differ essentially from Denifle are: Bach, 



MEISTER ECKEHART 61 

lows : Eckehart does not distinguish clearly between the 
esse of God and the esse of creatures. He says: "What 
is so near to being itself, which is God, as existence! Or 
what is so intimately related as existence and being, be- 
tween which there is no medium V ,41 Eckehart does not 
discriminate between the two ideas which makes it easy 
to identify in his teaching the esse of God and the esse of 
creatures. Frequently he states the orthodox doctrine 
correctly but adds ideas which are difficult to reconcile 
with the teaching of the Church; then again he writes 
in perfect conformity with her doctrine ; as : "Being alone 
gives rest and causes all things that are without to rest 
in it and in it alone. Therefore, God who alone is being 
reposes in Himself and causes all things to repose in 
Him." 42 Eckehart then proceeds to treat of the esse 
in art and in nature and remarks: "But all and every 
being whether in art or in nature, inasmuch as it is 
being, that is by reason of its being, is from God and God 
alone. Therefore, in giving being to creatures God causes 
them to rest." 43 Here he makes the same statements 
regarding the esse of creatures that he makes concerning 
the esse of God. "God recognizes and knows nothing but 
being. He is limited by being. God loves nothing save 
His being. All creatures are being." 44 Could anything 
be stated more clearly and be more orthodox than the 
following passage? "God created the whole world; how- 
ever, creatures did not emanate from the Divine being ac- 
cording to their natural birth as did the eternal Word of 
the Father, for then the creature would be God, which no 



Meister Eckhart, p. 171. Linsenmann, Der ethische Charakter der 
Lehre Meister Eckeharts, p. 9. Ullmann, Reformers before the Re- 
formation, p. 29. W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, pp. 118, 153. Dela- 
croix, Le Mysticisme speculatif en Allemagne, p. 276ff. Pahncke, Ein 
Grundgedanke der deutschen Predigt Meister Eckeharts in Zeitschrift 
fur Kirchengeschichte, March, 1913. 

"Erfurt, col. 144. 

42 Erfurt, cols. 32, 150. 

"Ibid. 

"Pfeiffer, 262, 40. 



62 MEISTER ECKEHART 

right mind can conceive and which the very nature of 
creatures condemns as something impossible." 45 

"God loves everything because of its being," 46 but this 
being is God; here is the whole of Eckehart's argument. 
But unfortunately the esse which he at first designates as 
that of God, appears suddenly as that of creatures. This 
continual mingling of divine and of created being is found 
in many parts of his works. 47 According to Thomistic 
teaching creatures have their own existence yet are ever 
dependent on God for their preservation. With Ecke- 
hart, on the contrary, creatures exist through their being 
which exists in the being of God, and this latter more 
than the created essence forms a substratum for the esse 
of creatures. "By whom, through whom, and in whom 
are all things. Are because it signifies being." 48 Since 
the being of creatures does not really exist in the creature 
but in the being of God, therefore created being must 
necessarily be apparent being. What, then, is created 
if not universal being! Hence Eckehart could well call 
created things nihil — nothing. Here may be found the 
source of two condemned articles. The first of these, the 
seventh, is "He who prays for perishable things, prays 
for nothing ; he prays badly and for an evil ; from which 
evil we beg to be delivered when we say at the close of 
the Pater noster, ' and deliver us from evil. ' ' ' 49 The other 
article is the twentieth: "All creatures are a pure noth- 
ing. I do not say that they are small or something, they 
are simply nothing. ' ' 50 

With the scholastics Eckehart teaches that a knowledge 

of the Divine Persons is necessary for a right idea of 

creatures. Hence after having stated: "Therefore in the 

beginning He created heaven and earth, that is in the intel- 



45 Pfeiffer, 325, 23. 
48 Erfurt, col. 165. 

47 Erfurt, cols. 4, 42, 70, 72, 137, 139. 
48 Erfurt, col. 167. 

"Erfurt, col. 95; the same article is found verbatim in the Cues 
manuscript, Archiv II, p. 682; pp. 491-516. 
50 Pfeiffer, 136, 23. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 63 

lect," Eckehart concludes in regular Thomistic style, 
"and this is against those who say that God created and 
produced creatures naturally and through necessity." 51 
Therefore, it is God's infinite goodness and love that 
produced all creatures and preserves them in being. "It 
is on account of His goodness that God pours Himself 
out and communicates Himself to all creatures." 52 "His 
divine goodness forced Him to create all things with 
which He was eternally pregnant in the image of His in- 
tellect, that they might enjoy His goodness together with 
Him." 53 

When did God create the world! Eckehart gives as 
stated above (p. 58) four different expositions of "In the 
beginning God created heaven and earth." The third 
of these that "God certainly created in the past and 
is, nevertheless, always in the beginning of creation and 
begins to create," relates chiefly to the time of creation. 
He says: "The beginning in which God created heaven 
and earth is the simple now of eternity, that now in which 
God is from eternity and in which is . . . the eternal 
emanation of the Divine Persons. Therefore Moses said, 
that in the very beginning God created heaven and earth, 
that is, the absolute beginning in which God is and in 
which there is no interval whatever. And since it is some- 
times asked, why God did not create the world before, it 
is answered because He could not ; for in Him there was 
no first — prius — before the world was. Besides, how 
could He create the world before, when He creates it in 
the same now in which He is God! For it must not be 
imagined falsely that God awaited some future now in 
which to create the world. At one and the same time in 
which He ivas God, in which He begot His co-eternal Son, 
in all things equal to God, He also created the world."** 
Here are found embodied the first and the third condemned 



31 Erfurt, col. 12; St. Thomas, 1 p. qu., XXXII, a. 1, ad. 3. 

B2 Pfeiffer, 124, 33; 269, 21; 30, 36. 

B3 Erfurt, col. 12. 

B4 Erfurt, col. 12; Pfeiffer, 579, 7; 266, 27. 



64 MEISTER ECKEHART 

propositions. Both of these as well as the second, which 
is contained verbatim in the Exposition on St. John, treat 
of the eternity of the world. ' ' God was not able to create 
the world before ; because before the world and time there 
was no before . . . the world always was, for there 
was never a time in which there was no world. It can 
be admitted that the world ivas from eternity; and again, 
that God was not able to create it before, for He created 
the world in the first now of eternity, in which He is and 
is God." 55 

Denifle maintains 56 that Eckehart tries to demonstrate 
to what extent God created the world in the beginning, 
by giving various interpretations of "in the beginning 
God created heaven and earth." "In the beginning" 
signifies "in the Word" or "in the cause of the idea." 57 
"that is, He created all things according to the ideal 
cause." 58 God did not create the ideal world; on the 
contrary, He created the world of reality, that is the 
exterior world, according to the ideal cause. A second 
interpretation is "in the intellect," 59 or by the intellect, 
because God created the world rationally and voluntarily 
and not through necessity. Finally the third interpreta- 
tion is the "now of eternity" 60 in which God created the 
world exterior to Himself. Hence Eckehart is speaking 
here of the creation of the world only in so far as there 
is question of this in Genesis. According to him the Son 
is the ideal cause of the world, therefore the creation of 
the world necessarily presupposes the generation of 
the Son. 

In this one act of God, considered as an act of God only, 
the two moments, that of uttering the word and that of 
creating the world, can be differentiated in God alone; 



55 Archiv II, p. 680. 
50 Ibid., p. 475. 
B7 Erfurt, col. 11. 
B8 Erfurt, col. 12. 
69 Ibid. 
eo Ibid. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 65 

in fact, He performs both the one and the other in the 
"eternal now." "God spoke but once. He uttered the 
Son in generation, because the Son is the Word, but He 
also uttered creation in creating. He spoke and they 
were made. He commanded and they were created (Ps. 
148, 4). Hence this is what the Psalm signifies: God 
spoke but once, I heard these two — two, I say, heaven and 
earth. Or rather these two, the emanation of the Persons 
and the creation of the world." 61 "The eternal emana- 
tion is the source of all things as regards their eternity, 
but in time they are created out of nothing. This is the 
reason why they are creatures ; but in the eternal emana- 
tion in which they emanated, they are not themselves, 
they are God in God." 62 The eternity of God knows 
neither first nor last, it is an everlasting present in which 
the life and works of God take place, for God Himself is 
this now. Hence it follows that God, if the act only and 
not the effect be considered, could not have created the 
world sooner than He really did, for the simple now of 
eternity knows no past and no future, no before and 
no after, which exist only with the world; God's act is 
the eternal now. 

It is, however, not sure, as some affirm, that Eckehart 
intends the conclusion of the eternity of the world to be 
drawn from his words. Denifle asks 63 why we should 
give to Eckehart 's third interpretation of "in the be- 
ginning" a signification different from that given to the 
other two? In these two Eckehart shows how "to create 
in the beginning" is to be understood on the part of God, 
and there seems to be no reason why he should have a 
different point of view in the third. Why consider in this 
place the effect, when in the other two the act alone is 



61 Ibid. Pfeiffer, 207, 30. Here the necessary qualifying phrase is 
added: "But the prophet says: 'I heard two,' that is, I understand 
God and the creature. When God uttered it, it was God, but here it 
is a creature." 

62 Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum VIII, p. 248. 

63 Denifle, op. cit., II, p. 479. 



66 MEISTER ECKEHART 

considered? In the present instance Eckehart formulates 
his doctrine in such a manner that he seems to teach the 
eternity of the world. As soon as it is stated that "God 
created the world from all eternity," or "As soon as God 
was, He created the world,' ' one is forced to conclude 
that the world is eternal. This is the effect of our mode 
of thinking, for we cannot conceive of an act apart from 
its effect, and we naturally form the same ideas of divine 
acts, particularly when the creative act is brought into 
connection with another eternal act of God, as is done in 
the present case. 

To summarize Eckehart 's teaching on the creation we 
note: (1) He admits in every creature a virtual and a 
formal being. The virtual being it has in God, its essen- 
tial and First Cause; the formal being is that which it 
possesses in nature according to its peculiar form. (2) 
He identifies the Word with the divine ideas. (3) The 
ideas are the eternal uncreated thought of God ; hence the 
eternity of the world of ideas. (4) God created all things, 
that is, he brought them from non-being into being. 
(5) God as the First Cause created all things in Himself, 
because out of Him there is nothing; hence the ex nihilo 
of creation signifies the order and not the material cause 
of creation. (6) All creatures depend on God, their First 
Cause, for their preservation; hence the attributes of 
paternity and maternity ascribed to God. (7) Eckehart 
does not discriminate sufficiently between the esse of God 
and that of creatures, but often mingles them and thus 
seems to imply that they are identical. The created esse, 
according to him, subsists in the divine esse which acts 
as a substratum for the created or universal esse. (8) As 
a result of this, created being can be only apparent being ; 
hence all creatures are a pure nothing. (9) With the 
scholastics he teaches that God did not create the world 
through necessity, but voluntarily, because of His infinite 
goodness. (10) Finally, Eckehart apparently asserts the 
eternity of the world, as some of his propositions go 
to prove. 



CHAPTER VI 

SIN AND THE EEDEMPTION 

Eckehart attributes to evil the character of privation, 
as it is a falling away from being, and therefore concludes 
that evil can have no cause ; consequently, it is impossible 
that God who is being itself, should be the cause of that 
which possesses no being. 1 In stating that evil has no 
cause, Eckehart refers to its formal as well as to its 
final cause. As a privation of form evil has no formal 
cause, nor has it a final cause since it is a negation of 
order; nevertheless, evil may have an accidental cause. 
Thus evil, which consists in a defect of action, is always 
caused by some defect of an agent. In God there is no 
{defect, there is nothing but infinite perfection, therefore, 
He cannot be considered the cause of evil. It is in this 
sense that Eckehart teaches: "As the saints and the 
philosophers state, evil is nothing but a privation and a 
falling away from being; a defect, a want of being. 
Hence the greatness of an evil depends on the amount of 
good that is wanting; and the evil, whether it is punish- 
ment, or guilt, or some other thing, is greater when it is 
deficient in a good that is superior as to quality, or quan- 
tity, or being. For generally that is worse in which a 
more noble being or a greater variety of being is wanting. 
In the second place it is evident, that evil has no cause ; 
for a cause presupposes an effect as every effect has a 
cause. But evil is not an effect but a defect, a negation, 
which the word 'defect' itself indicates. Therefore, to 
seek the cause of evil is to seek the cause of that which 
has no cause, since it is no effect; in fact, not to be an 
effect and not to have a cause, this is what constitutes 
the evil. Whoever, therefore, seeks the cause of evil, 
seeks the cause of non-being. . . . On the other hand, 
it is especially impossible that God should be the cause of 



] Cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. XLVIII, a. 1, 3. 

67 



68 MEISTER ECKEHART 

evil and death or any other privation, since He alone 
is the proper and immediate cause of being itself ; whereas 
evil has no being, it is falling away from being. More- 
over, since being is an effect peculiar to God who is its 
cause, He flows into it and communicates being to it; 
hence being that is evil is impossible. But to say that 
some good or being is perverted, is the same as to assert 
that being is not being, or evil is not evil." 2 "It is evi- 
dent then that since evil is a non-being, it cannot be from 
God nor can God be in it, for it has no being. Hence 
those only are evil in whom God does not dwell, for they 
neither are nor are they created. ' ' 3 

Commenting on the next, ' ' They that work by me shall 
not sin/' 4 Eckehart adds: "Note in the first place a ser- 
vice 'they that work by me,' and then the reward 'shall 
not sin.' But why is the reward stated negatively 'shall 
not sin,' for a negative reward is nothing? Service gen- 
erally implies activity, and reward passivity, that is, 
receiving something, but punishment consists in privation 
and pain. Service lies in action and therefore proceeds 
from the will, which renders us masters of our actions; 
the reward is in the emotions and in the intellect, for to 
understand anything is to suffer or receive it from with- 
out ; lastly, the punishment is in privation and therefore 
in affliction. Every privation is a falling away from 
being, consequently from some good, or pleasure, or 
delight." 5 

In the German works Eckehart seldom mentions evil 
as such, except very indirectly and then only in connec- 
tion with some other subject; but evil that is moral, or 
sin, he does mention, as one would expect in works that 
have primarily an ethical purpose. With all Catholic 
theologians Eckehart considers moral evil, or sin, as the 
only real evil in the world. Hence he can truly say: "I 

2 Erfurt, cols. 87, 88; Pfeiffer, 327, 15; 613, 6. 
3 Erfurt, cols. 94, 96. 
4 Ecclus. XXIV, 30. 
B Erfurt, col. 79. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 69 



>6 



am certain that nothing can injure me save sin alone,' 
for it is the greatest obstacle to God's work in the soul. 
" Therefore sin must be removed before the soul can be 
justified and God can dwell in her." 7 Although fully con- 
scious of the enormous guilt of sin, Eckehart refrains 
from enlarging upon its hatred and malice, and turns 
instead to its effects. Sin, according to its nature, is a 
turning away from the ultimate purpose of life, from 
virtue and everlasting happiness; hence sin is disorder, 
infirmity and death. Therefore he teaches: "Mortal sin 
is an infirmity of our nature. Human nature is an image 
of the Blessed Trinity, a likeness and mirror of the Divin- 
ity and of eternity. Mortal sin ruins all this. It is the 
death of the soul, for it deprives the soul of God, its life. 
Mortal sin is an unrest of the heart, since it removes the 
soul from its proper place of repose which is in God, as 
St. Augustine says: 'Thou hast made us for Thyself; 
therefore we cannot rest save in Thee.' Mortal sin is 
a weakening of the faculties, because through our own 
power we can neither rise from sin nor keep from falling 
into it. Mortal sin deceives the senses as to its transitory 
delight as well as to its eternal punishment. Mortal sin 
is the death of all grace . . . and virtue . . . and 
good works; for how can a dead person perform living 
works? Mortal sin is the ban of Christendom . . . 
and finally, it is an everlasting, infernal prison." 8 

In his interpretation of "They that work by me shall 
not sin," 9 Eckehart shows what it is that renders one 
action good and praiseworthy and another sinful. "The 
first explanation of by me is according to me. In every 
art that which is done according to the art is right and 
good, but what is against the art is wrong and 
worthy of punishment. The same is true in nature and 
in morality where all acts are done for a definite end, 



"Sievers, op. cit., p. 421. 
7 Ibid., p. 383. 
'Pfeiffer, p. 217, 3-40. 
•Ecclus. XXIV, 30. 



70 MEISTER ECKEHART 

and which by that very fact are considered good. On the 
contrary, whatever is opposed to nature, to art, to moral- 
ity or is inconsistent with their laws is sinful; and this 
alone constitutes the sin. As is said in Jureperitus : 10 
' He who sins does not sin with the authority of the law.' 
The meaning is, whoever performs an act because the law 
ordains it, does not sin ; but he sins who acts against the 
law. . . . All that is done according to God is good, 
but what is done away from Him is sinful, and in this 
alone does sin consist. And that is the meaning of these 
words : "They that work by me,' that is according to me, 
'shall not sin.' 11 In another place Eckehart asks what 
sin is and answers : ' ' Sin is the turning aside from happi- 
ness and from virtue." 12 Sin is so great an evil that 
"rather than knowingly commit sin, either mortal or 
venial, we must be ready to endure all kinds of suffering 
that could befall us. Were it possible to redeem a count- 
less number of lost souls by the commission of one venial 
sin, we may not redeem them on that condition. ' m 

Eckehart has a rather striking doctrine on good works 
performed in the state of mortal sin. The Church 
teaches that good works done in the state of grace merit 
an eternal reward from God, but this is lost by mortal sin, 
and is of no avail to the sinner if he dies unf orgiven. So 
long as he remains in sin he is incapable of meriting, and 
his works, good in themselves, are worthless. But as 
soon as his sin is remitted, he regains not only sanctifying 
grace but also all the merit he had before falling into 
mortal sin. While fully agreeing with part of this prop- 
osition, Eckehart positively denies that works performed 
in the state of grievous sin are not deserving of merit. 
He affirms that neither good works done in the state of 



10 Eckehart understands by Jureperitus the Decree of Gratian es- 
pecially c. 40, C. XXIII, qu. 4: Qui peccat, non peccat legis auctoritate, 
sed contra legis auctoritatem. 

"Erfurt, cols. 80, 82. 

12 Pfeiffer, 172, 29. 

13 Biittner, op. cit., p. 29. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 71 

mortal sin, nor the time in which they are accomplished 
is lost, always provided, however, that man will return 
to the state of grace. "The works a person performs 
in the state of mortal sin are not done by means 
of mortal sin, for these works are good and mortal 
sin is bad. They proceed instead from the basis 
of the soul, which of its own nature is good; but as 
the soul is not in the state of grace, these works do not 
merit heaven at the time they are performed. Moreover, 
they do not injure the soul, for their fruit remains in the 
soul, spiritualized and made one with it. Therefore, 
it is as impossible to destroy the fruit of the work as 
it is to destroy the spirit itself. Furthermore, through 
the execution of these ideas which are good, the spirit 
frees itself as effectually as if it were in the state of 
grace and makes the same preparation for union with 
God. In proportion as the spirit is void of images by 
the execution of its ideas (ledigende ist und iiz 
wiirkende) it will approach to God, and hence in the same 
proportion neither work nor time is lost. . . . If it 
were necessary to perform the same good works after 
the return of grace, there would be need of the time which 
was employed while the person was in the state of mortal 
sin, but now this time is at his disposal for other good 
works that will unite him more closely to God. Hence 
the fruit of those works remains in the spirit; and 
although the work and the time are not eternal, neverthe- 
less the spirit from which they proceeded lives, and the 
fruit of the work, but without the work and the time, is 
full of grace. ' ,14 

Among the condemned articles there are five that relate 
to Eckehart's teaching on sin. In the interpretation of 
the text ' ' That the works of God may be made manifest 
in him," 15 after having stated Jhat the end of all God's 
works is to manifest the glory of God, Eckehart con- 
tinues: "In every evil work, I say evil inasmuch as it 

"Pfeiffer, 73, 26. 
"John, IX, 3. 



72 MEISTER ECKEHART 

is wrong, the glory of God is manifested, reflected, and 
equally evident, 16 according to what was said above, ' And 
the light shineth in the darkness.' 17 . . . He who 
blasphemes anyone, praises God with the very sin of 
blasphemy; and the more he blasphemes, the more he 
praises God. 18 Indeed he praises God by blaspheming 
God." 19 This last quotation contains the fourth, fifth, 
and sixth condemned articles. The fourteenth is found in 
the German treatise known as "The Book of Divine Con- 
solations." Eckehart is insisting on complete submission 
of the human will to the divine will, and, as he frequently 
does in his ardent, impulsive manner, permits himself 
certain exaggerated expressions without any thought of 
their far-reaching import. "And, therefore, if God 
should will for any reason whatever, that I commit sin, I 
would not wish that I had not committed it; for thus 
God's will is accomplished on earth, that is in sin, as it is 
in heaven, that is in good deeds." 20 The fifteenth con- 
demned article embodies the same idea. "If a person 
had committed a thousand sins, provided he is rightly 
disposed, he should not wish he had not committed 
them. ' ' 21 

Eckehart 's passage on hell, the eternal punishment for 
sin, forms a fitting conclusion to his doctrine on sin and 
evil. ' ' There is question as to what burns in hell. The 
doctors agree in answering — self-will ! But I assert, it is 
nothing that burns in hell. Suppose that some one took 

18 The fourth condemned proposition. Item in omni opere, etiam 
malo, malo inquam tarn pene, quam culpe, manifestatur et relucet 
equaliter gloria dei. 

"John I 5. 

ls The fifth condemned proposition. Item yituperans quempiam 
vituperio ipso peccato vituperii laudat deum, et quo plus yituperat et 
gravius peccat, amplius deum laudat. 

18 Archiv II, p. 682; the sixth condemned proposition. Item deum 
quis blasphemando deum laudat. 

20 Pfeiffer, 426, 19. Bonus homo debet sic conformare voluntatem 
suam voluntati divine, quod ipse velit quicquid deus vult: qua deus yult 
aliquo modo me peccasse, nollem ego, quod ego peccata non commisissem, 
et hec est vera penitentia. 

ai Si homo commisisset mille peccata mortalia, si talis homo esset 
recte dispositus, non deberet velle se ea non commisisse. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 73 

a live coal and laid it on my hand ; if I then said that the 
coal burns my hand, I should be greatly mistaken. If I 
were to say what really burns me, I should have to reply 
that nothing does it; because the coal possesses some- 
thing which my hand does not, and it is this nothing 
which burns me. If my hand had all that the coal is and 
does, it would completely possess the nature of fire. Then 
all the fire that ever burned, if it were poured out on 
my hand, could not hurt me. In the same way, I assert, 
that because God and all the saints that behold Him in 
everlasting bliss, possess something which those souls 
that are separated from God do not possess, it is this very 
nothing that tortures the souls in hell more than self- 
will or fire. Thou art imperfect in the same proportion 
as this nothing adheres to thee." 22 

Adam on account of sin fell from the state of original 
justice and consequently from God and His friendship 
and brought disorder into creation. "When Adam turned 
away from God, all his faculties degenerated. Then, 
too, it was that creatures were differentiated because 
discord entered among them, one wanting this and an- 
other that. Thus all powers were weakened in creatures 
even to the lowest." 23 Christ alone could restore Adam 
to the unity from which he had fallen. Hence Eckehart 
interprets the words, "I go to Him who sent me" thus: 
" I go to deliver you from all the fetters of creatures into 
which the sin of Adam has cast you." 24 But Christ 
accomplished this more fully when He drew all things 
to Himself. One of Eckehart 's most beautiful passages 
treats of the manner in which Christ, Our Lord, atoned 
for the sin of Adam. 

"Before Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, 
the heavenly Father had drawn men with all His power 
for the space of five thousand and two hundred years, and 



22 Pfeiffer, 65, 20. 
23 Pfeiffer, 497, 2. 
24 Pfeiffer, 244, 13. 



74 MEISTER ECKEHART 

yet He had not drawn anyone into the kingdom of heaven. 
When the Son saw how hard the Father had labored and 
had accomplished nothing, then He spoke to the Father 
saying: 'I will draw them with the cords of Adam'; as 
though He said: 'I see well, Father, that all Thy power 
can effect nothing, therefore my wisdom will draw them 
with the cords of Adam. This is why the Son descended 
from heaven into the womb of Our Lady and there 
assumed all our corporal infirmities, but without the 
sin and without the folly into which Adam had cast 
us. He made a cord of all His words and acts, and 
of all His blood and members, and then drew with all 
His Heart until finally a bloody sweat poured forth 
from His sacred Body. After He had drawn thirty- 
three years and had accomplished nothing, He saw, never- 
theless, that all creatures began to be moved and were 
now ready to follow Him. Therefore, He said: 'When I 
shall be lifted up, I shall draw all things to myself ; ' and 
therefore was He extended on the cross, casting aside His 
comeliness and all that could prevent Him from drawing 
us. . . . 

"The first thing that naturally draws others is equal- 
ity. . . . Through His divinity and His equality He 
drew the heavenly Father. . . . Then to draw Him 
still closer and to cause Him to forget His anger, the Son 
spoke : 'Dearest Father, since Thou wouldst never forgive 
sin, not even in consideration of all the sacrifices offered 
Thee in the Old Law, therefore I pray Thee, my Father, 
I, the only begotten Son of Thy Heart, equal to Thee in 
all things according to the divinity and in whom Thou 
hast hidden every treasure of divine love, I have come to 
this cross as a living holocaust, that Thou cast on me, Thy 
beloved Son, the eyes of Thy paternal mercy, and behold- 
ing the blood which flows from my wounds, do Thou extin- 
guish the fiery sword in the hands of the cherub who 
guards the entrance to paradise, so that from henceforth 



MEISTER ECKEHART 75 

all may freely enter therein who, through me, repent of 
their sins, confess them, and do penance . . . 

"The second way in which He drew all things to Him- 
self was by emptying Himself. All His precious Blood 
streamed forth, thus drawing to Himself the superabun- 
dance of grace and mercy hidden in the Father 's Heart, 
a superabundance that more than sufficed for the whole 
world. . . . Thirdly, Our Lord Jesus Christ was 
inflamed and consumed on the cross; for His Sacred 
Heart burned like a fiery furnace from which flames 
issued forth on all sides. That the whole world might be 
redeemed He was consumed on the cross in the fire of 
His love. It was by the fire of this love that He drew the 
world to Him; His love for mankind was so great that 
no one could conceal himself from those flames. . . . 
For nothing that Our Blessed Lord ever did was accom- 
plished with so great a love as the martyrdom He endured 
on the cross. There He delivered Himself for us, to wash 
away our sins in His precious Blood and to offer Himself 
up as a sacrifice to the living God. Therefore, it was 
principally by the love which He manifested for us on 
the cross that He drew us to Himself, that all who com- 
passionate His bitter sufferings and death may be happy 
with Him in the eternal bliss of heaven. ' ' 25 

Our Lord and Savior came on earth to serve as our 
model in all things; He is the way, the truth, and the 
life. "Christ alone is our way and the aim that we 
must follow." 26 "His humanity is the way for our hu- 
manity. To understand this fully, let us study this com- 
plete exemplar of perfection as well as each of His 
features separately. If we deviate from even a single 
trait of our model, we shall deform ourselves. We ought 
so to live, says St. Paul, that God can behold in us the 
reflection of all His acts; that is, we ought to strive to 
imitate the life He taught us by His own example.' 

25 Pfeiffer, 218, 26-220, 15. 

"Pfeiffer, 295, 7. 

"Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Altertum, VIII, no. 8. 



J27 



CHAPTEE VII 

VIETUE AND GOOD WOEKS 

The virtue on which Meister Eckehart lays most stress 
and which he considers fundamental, is humility. 
Humility is the real test of sanctity; for without humil- 
ity there can be no holiness, no true virtue. "Now some 
imagine themselves very holy and very perfect because 
they refrain from great deeds, and all the while they 
desire and want many things and demand great consid- 
eration for themselves. These people imagine they really 
long for devotion and yet they cannot bear the least 
word ! ' n "If we want to know in whom God dwells, we 
can easily discover it by two things, namely, true humility 
and charity. ' ' 2 

But how can true humility be known? "This is true 
humility — that man who has been created out of nothing, 
should because of this very nothingness not presume 
either to do or to omit anything of himself, but in all 
things implore the light of grace. In this knowledge of 
what we are to do and what to leave undone, consists 
true humility of nature. Humility of spirit leads us 
to attribute to ourselves as little of all the benefits God 
has conferred on us, as we did before we had any being. " 3 
Humility renders man truly great; 4 for God is, as it 
were, constrained to pour out His graces on the humble. 
"God can do all things, but He cannot refuse anything 
to the man who is humble and of great desires. If, there- 
fore, I do not constrain God to do all that I wish, it is 
because I am wanting either in humility or in desires." 5 
Some other advantages that spring from humility are 
that God strengthens the humble man in all virtues, but 



'Pfeiffer, 148, 27. 
2 Sievers, op. cit., p. 395. 
3 Pfeiffer, 295, 21. 
4 Pfeiffer, 276, 18. 
B Pfeiffer, 168, 27. 



76 



MEISTER ECKEHART 77 

especially in His holy love; 6 that the humble soul is 
borne up by divine grace until it reposes in the pure being 
of God; 7 hence humility paves the way for one of God's 
greatest gifts — the intimate union of the soul with God. 

Eckehart is no less insistent on charity, the life-giving 
principle of all virtues, than he is on humility. "But 
humility must be joined to charity, for without charity 
humility would be dead ; it is charity that causes all vir- 
tues to be virtues. ' ' 8 If humility is the foundation, char- 
ity is the crown and mistress of all virtues. "Charity 
is . . . the mother of all virtue, and all perfection, 
and all beatitude." 9 At the beginning of conversion 
fear is necessary, fear as regards sin; but "because fear 
contracts the heart, charity expels it; the more charity 
increases, the more fear diminishes." 10 "To serve God 
through fear is well, but to serve Him through love is 
better." 11 "True charity does not seek itself, but it 
loves God for His goodness and for all that He is in Him- 
self." 12 "Love God as readily in poverty as in riches, 
in sickness as in health; let Him be as dear to thee in 
trials and suffering, as though thou wert without any 
suffering. ' m 

It is a well-known axiom of the spiritual life that the 
body is more speedily and more certainly brought into 
subjection to the spirit through love than through works 
of penance. Eckehart illustrates this truth as follows: 
"Love is like the angler's hook: as soon as the fish has 
bitten, it succumbs to the angler; no matter how the 
fish may turn and writhe, the angler has it safe." 14 
"Where love knows no limits, there God can act accord- 
ing to the measure of His love. And were a man to live a 



6 Pfeiffer, 226, 3. 
7 Pfeiffer, 155, 21. 
8 Pfeiffer, 606, 31. 
9 Pfeiffer, 259, 26. 
10 Pfeiffer, 245, 27. 
"Pfeiffer, 221, 34. 
12 Pfeiffer, 259, 23. 
13 Pfeiffer, 209, 10. 
14 Pfeiffer, 29, 32. 



78 MEISTER ECKEHART 

thousand years, lie could constantly increase in char- 
ity. ' ' 15 " So long as thou canst do anything against God 
or His holy law, thou hast no love of God, even though 
the whole world should believe thou hast it. It is joy 
to the man who lovingly abides in God's will, to do all 
that is pleasing to Him and to avoid all that is displeas- 
ing." 16 This divine love not only subjects the body to 
the spirit, but as it increases in the soul it generates 
within it such a longing for the possession of God that 
the soul can no longer find any pleasure in creatures 
unless they refer to the Beloved, and the lover himself is 
gradually transformed, as far as this is possible, into 
the Beloved. Hence "the soul that burns with an ardent 
desire for the love of God and that diligently seeks Him 
experiences in all things out of God nothing but bitter- 
ness and disappointment. Since, therefore, the soul can 
find no rest in creatures, it becomes wearisome to itself 
just as soon as it finds itself resting in a creature away 
from God. Its ardent longing for God compels it to fol- 
low after Him, as fire follows its own nature until it has 
consumed and transformed into itself the object upon 
which it has seized. Hence St. Augustine says: "Lord, 
if Thou remove from us, give us another in Thy place for 
our souls cannot live without Thee. Whither Thou goest, 
thither will they follow after Thee, for without Thee they 
cannot exist. This is perfect love which causes the soul 
to love unto the end. ' m 

Eckehart considers the love of God perfect if it 
reigns alone to the exclusion of every other love, yet 
not because it is superior in itself to every other form 
of love. In this sense he interprets the text, "Simon, 
lovest thou me more than these?" 18 as follows: "When 
it is said, lovest thou me more than these, it means, lovest 
thou me more and better than those belonging to thee? 

1B Buttner, op. cit., p. 28. 
"Pfeiffer, 232, 29. 
17 Ffeiffer, 335, 22. 
18 John XXI, 15. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 79 

But this is not yet perfect love ; for first and second, more 
and less, indicate order and degree, but in unity (in uno) 
there is no such degree or order. Therefore, although 
he may love God more and better than those nearest and 
dearest to him, yet he does not love Him perfectly, for 
he neither loves God in them nor them in God." 19 This 
is the twenty-fifth article mentioned in the bull of con- 
demnation, one of those propositions censured as daring 
and suspected of heresy. 20 

The love of God must go hand in hand with love of 
the neighbor, as St. John says: "If a man say, I love 
God and hateth his neighbor, he is a liar . . . this 
commandment we have from God, that he who loveth 
God, love also his brother." 21 The same thought is found 
scattered up and down the pages of Eckehart's sermons 
and treatises. "Love God above all things and thy neigh- 
bor as thyself, for this is a divine precept. But I say 
it is not only a precept, but a command that God Himself 
gave." 22 "If thou love one person more than another, 
except it be for his virtue, then thou seekest thyself and 
God is not thy God." 23 It is for this very reason charity 
demands that we forgive him who has offended us. 
"Why so? That we fulfill God's will. We ought not 
to delay this duty until our brother begs us to forgive 
him, we ought rather say: Friend, forgive me that I 
have offended thee. And so eager should we be to advance 
in virtue, that the greater the pain, the more earnest we 
should be." 24 "Does this seem too difficult?" he asks in 
another place and then replies: "Not to him who truly 
loves God. . . . Such a man is always happy, always 



19 Cues manuscript, Archiv II, p. 683. 

20 Cum dicitur: Simon diligis me plus hiis? sensus est, id est, 
plusquam istos, et bene quidem, sed non perfecte. In primo enim et 
secundo et plus et minus et gradus est et ordo, in uno autem nee 
gradus est nee ordo. Qui igitur diligit deum plus quam proximum, 
bene quidem, sed nondum perfecte. 

21 1 John IV, 20, 21. 

-Pfeiffer, 208, 22. 

23 Pfeiffer, 278, 20. 

"Pfeiffer, 62, 13. 



80 MEISTER ECKEHART 

respected, and always reaping benefits ; lie is really here 
below dwelling in the kingdom of heaven." 25 

Next to humility and charity Eckehart lays most stress 
on conformity to God's holy will and detachment; how- 
ever, he states in general that one virtue should not be 
esteemed higher than another, 26 for "the faithful and 
loving soul, like the bee that extracts sweet nectar from 
all sorts of flowers to convert into honey, gathers from 
each flower of virtue something wherewith to improve 
and benefit itself." 27 

Conformably to the doctrine of St. James that "Faith 
without good works is dead," 28 Eckehart frequently em- 
phasizes the value and necessity of good works, both 
interior and exterior. He teaches that these latter have 
been ordained and regulated "to turn the outer man to 
God, to direct him to a spiritual life and to good works ; to 
restrain man and thus prevent him from neglecting him- 
self or being led astray; to keep the soul ever in readi- 
ness for God's action. . . . The aim of all such 
virtuous acts as praying, spiritual reading, singing 
hymns, watching, fasting, and works of penance is to 
attract man, to turn him away and keep him from evil 
and strange deeds. Therefore, when we no longer per- 
ceive the influence of the Holy Spirit acting within us, 
when we are, as it were, abandoned by God, then it is 
very necessary that we exercise ourselves in devout 
works, especially in such as we know by experience to be 
most effectual and helpful." 29 

The end or intention of an act is of such importance 
that it renders acts, indifferent in themselves, either good 
or bad ; consequently all good works are meritorious and 
pleasing in the sight of God in proportion to the purity 
of the intention that prompts them. "The merit of our 



25 Pfeiffer, 136, 7. 
20 Pfeiffer, 190, 22. 
27 Pfeiffer, 414, 11. 
28 Jas. 11, 26. 
2s Pfeiffer, 22, 27. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 81 

acts does not depend on their number, greatness or 
length, bnt on the intention alone; that is, on the love 
or charity of the person who accomplishes the work." 30 
"When a man performs a good deed with the intention 
directed to something else than God, he renders the honor 
of the good work to that something and not to God, whom 
he despoils of the honor. Hence such works are useless 
and without merit. ' m 

Although good works are necessary, they cannot, how- 
ever, be substituted for amendment of life — such a pro- 
cedure would be mere folly. - ' I have often said that those 
who observe long fasts and frequent vigils and perform 
great works, but who do not correct their faults and 
reform their lives, in which alone true progress consists, 
deceive themselves and are the sport of the evil spirit. ' ' 32 
"Let no one measure his advancement in sanctity by 
prolonged fasts and numerous exterior works. The true 
sign of progress is the increase of love for heavenly 
things and a growing distaste for the things of time. If 
a person, who possesses a hundred marks, 33 should for 
the love of God give them to found a monastery, he would 
certainly do a very good work. Nevertheless, I say, it 
would be far better if a person contemned and annihi- 
lated himself as much for the love of God. ' m 

The Brethren of the Free Spirit claimed, as did also 
,the Beghards, that when the "perfect stage" is reached 
good works are useless. In opposition to these heretics 
Eckehart strongly insists on the doctrine that there can 
never be a time when good works are not necessary. "No 
one can ever arrive at a point in this life when he need 
not perform exterior good works. Above all the person 
who leads a contemplative life cannot dispense with them ; 
he must share his abundance with others through the 



30 Erfurt, col. 64. 

"Pfeiffer, 611, 11; 179, 1. 

32 Pfeiffer, 171, 14; Sievers, op. cit., p. 404. 

33 The mark was formerly a half-pound of gold or silver. 

84 Pfeiffer, 178, 35. 



82 MEISTER ECKEHART 

exercises of the active life." 35 "Christ said, 'Let your 
light shine before men.' 36 He meant in a special man- 
ner those who are intent on contemplation alone and 
who do not devote themselves to any moral activity; 
those also who think it unnecessary to exercise themselves 
in virtue, because they have passed beyond this stage. 
It was not to such that Our Lord alluded when he said 
The seed 'fell upon good ground; and being sprung up, 
yielded fruit a hundredfold. m But He did think of them 
when He said: 'Every tree therefore that doth not yield 
good fruit shall be cut down' (Matt. III:10)." 38 "If a 
person is so infirm or aged as not to be able to perform 
corporal works, let him keep to interior spiritual works, 
such as good will and love of God, which are besides 
nobler and greater in the sight of God than exterior 
works." 39 "I admit that a person in actual contempla- 
tion may and ought to omit all exterior works the while 
he is in the state of contemplation; but afterwards he 
should again exercise himself in exterior works, for no 
one can remain continually in contemplation; the active 
life must take the place of the contemplative. ' ' 40 

In connection with this orthodox teaching on good 
works, Eckehart's errors on the same subject appear 
in a somewhat strange light. His interpretation of these 
words of Our Lord: "I have chosen you and appointed 
you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit, ' ' 41 
forms the eighteenth condemned article. 42 "He wishes 
to say that we ought not to bring forth the fruit of 
exterior acts which do not benefit us, but the fruit of 
interior works, which the Father who dwells in us effects 



33 Pfeiffer, 607, 30. 

S6 Matt. V, 16. 

37 Luke VIII, 8. 

S8 Pfeiffer, 19, 6. 

39 Sievers, op. cit., no. 6. 

40 Pfeiffer, 608. 2. 

41 John XV, 6. 

"'Afferamus fructum actuum non exteriorum, qui nos bonos non 
faciunt, sed actuum interiorum, quos pater in nobis manens facit et 
operatur. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 83 

and produces." 43 The sixteenth and seventeenth articles 
contain the erroneous thought that exterior works are 
not inspired by God. "God does not really suggest an 
exterior act, since it can prove a hindrance to the soul. ' ,44 
"An exterior act is, properly speaking, neither good nor 
divine, nor does God really effect or produce it. ' ' 45 When 
interpreting these words of Wisdom, "who lovest souls " 
(Wis., XI.-27) Eckehart adds: "This is what is implied 
— Thou who lovest souls, but dost not love exterior 
works." 46 Such statements as the following certainly 
contain quietistic principles: "An exterior work is 
neither good, nor holy, nor blessed, nor unblessed"; 47 
"number adds little to the value of the prayer; for one 
Ave said with a whole heart and a detached heart is 
better than a thousand psalters recited orally." 48 How 
can propositions such as these be reconciled with Ecke- 
hart 's clear and decisive teaching of the necessity of good 
works and of their supernatural merit? To say 
the least Eckehart often tries his reader's patience by 
his inconsistency. 

The Latin works extant contain but little on the sub- 
ject of virtue and good works. The proper place to study 
Eckehart 's doctrine of virtue and good works is in the 
German sermons and treatises that aim to be purely 
ethical. 



43 Cues manuscript, Archiv II, p. 683. 

"Ibid. This is the sixteenth condemned proposition. Deus proprie 
non precipit actum exteriorem. 

45 Ibid. This is the seventeenth condemned proposition. Actus 
exterior non est proprie bonus nee divinus, nee operatur ipsum deus 
proprie neque parit. 

46 Erfurt, col. 159. Archiv II, p. 434. The nineteenth condemned 
proposition: Deus animas amat, non opus extra. 

47 Pfeiffer, 72, 23; this corresponds to the seventeenth proposition. 

4S Pfeiffer, 611, 25; this corresponds to the nineteenth proposition. 



CHAPTEE VIII 

THE SOUL 

God never created anything so like to His own image 
as the hnman soul. "All other creatures are but the 
footprints of God, as it were, but the soul is His image. ' n 
It is in virtue of this likeness that "God is the form and 
the soul of the soul." 2 It is only when we contemplate 
God that we can see in what this image consists. "The 
soul is threefold in its powers but simple in its nature. 
Although the soul is present in all the members of the 
body, it is, nevertheless, entire in each member ; hence all 
the members of the body form one simple abode of the 
soul. The soul also possesses a certain foreknowledge, 
and forms an idea in advance of those things which lie 
within its power. All that can be said of God is found 
to a limited extent as an image in the soul. ' ' 3 

Like all the scholastics Eckehart considers the soul, 
which is simple and spiritual, as the substantial form 
of the body; as such it is not subject to the conditions 
of space and time. 4 "The soul is more than thousand- 
fold and is, nevertheless, entire in every member ; in the 
fingers, in the eyes, the heart, and in every part of every 
member, whether large or small." 5 "If a man have a 
dear friend one thousand miles away, his soul and all its 
faculties can span this distance and there love his friend. 
As St. Augustine says : The soul is more present where 
it loves than where it gives life. " 6 " Yea, in very truth, 
that which is a thousand miles farther away from me than 
is Jerusalem, is as near to my soul as my own body; of 
that I am as certain as that I am a human being. ' " 



Tfeiffer, 11, 7. 

'Pfeiffer, 658, 22. 

8 Pfeiffer, 386, 15. 

4 Cf. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. LXXVI, a. 8. 

8 Pfeiffer, 397, 21. 

•Pfeiffer, 383, 28. 

7 Pfeiffer, 257, 18. 



84 



MEISTER ECKEHART 85 

The soul operates by means of its faculties 8 and not 
through its nature. The lower faculties, which Ecke- 
hart designates as the woman of the soul, are the reason 
(rationale), the irascible powers (irascibile), and the 
concupiscible powers (concupiscibile). 9 The higher fac- 
ulties of the soul are the memory (memoria), the under- 
standing (intellectus), and the will (voluntas). These 
he calls the man of the soul. ' ' The memory is the recep- 
tive faculty for all the other faculties." 10 "The intellect 
emanates first from the soul, next the will, and then the 
other powers follow.'' 11 "The intellect is the superior 
part of the soul." 12 The first object of our knowledge, 
according to St. Thomas, is the quiddity of a thing, what 
it is, its being, and this is the proper object of the intel- 
lect, 13 a doctrine which Eckehart expresses as follows: 
' ' The intellect penetrates into the being of the thing 
before it considers its goodness, or power, or wisdom, or 
whatever is accidental ... it penetrates into the 
very being, where it apprehends God as pure being." 14 
"Only after the intellect has recognized true being, will 
it be at rest in its search, and form an opinion on 
the object with which it is occupied. So long as the 
intellect has not actually found the true being, nor really 
comprehended its true basis, so that it can say : It is this 
and nothing else, so long is it lost in its search, and will 
not come to any repose, but seeks and abstracts." 15 

Like many great scholastics before him, Eckehart 
adopts the Aristotelian distinction of the active reason 
and the passive or potential reason. These are not to 
be considered as two different faculties opposed to each 
other, but as two distinct phases of the same faculty. He 



8 Pfeiffer 4, 29. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. LXXIX, a. 1; LXXVII, a. 1. 

9 Pfeiffer, 70, 30. St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. LXXXI, a. 1. 

10 Pfeiffer, 383, 36. 

"Pfeiffer, 255, 6. 

12 Pfeiffer, 253, 32. 

13 St. Thomas, 1 p. qu. LXXXVIII, a. 3. 

"Pfeiffer, 110, 8; 383, 38. 

15 Pfeiffer, 20, 23. 



86 MEISTER ECKEHART 

calls them the two sons of the intellect. 16 "The active 
reason forms an image of exterior things from which it 
abstracts all that is material and accidental, and then 
conveys this abstract image to the passive reason. When 
the passive intellect has been thus charged, as it were, 
by the active intellect, it retains and recognizes objects 
within itself. However, the active intellect must 
enlighten it whenever it wishes to recall them. 17 The 
active intellect can bring forth only one image at a 
time, but when God acts in its stead, He produces simul- 
taneously a variety of images in the passive intellect. ' m 
In another place Eckehart mentions three forms of the 
intellect. "Man possesses an active, a passive, and a 
potential intellect. The first is always ready to effect 
something, either in God or in creatures for God's honor 
and glory; that is its province; it is called the active 
intellect. When, however, God undertakes this work, 
then the mind must hold itself passive. The potential 
intellect is directed towards both, that God's operation 
and the passivity of the mind may be made possible." 19 

The will is free to command what it wants, and to 
forbid what it does not want. 20 God Himself respects 
this freedom of the will and does not force it. As long 
as the soul sojourns in the body, it is free to act as it 
pleases. 21 Although the will enjoys this liberty, it re- 
quires the assistance of the other faculties and even of 
faith. They produce this effect in the will, because the 
simple nature of the soul is common to all its powers. 22 

Occasionally Eckehart refers to the strife between the 
Thomists and the Scotists as to which is more excellent, 
the intellect or the will, or rather which of these facul- 
ties unites man to God. "The masters ask whether the 



16 Pfeiffer, 110, 35. 
"Pfeiffer, 19, 22. 
"Pfeiffer, 20, 1. 
"Pfeiffer, 16, 35. 
20 Pfeiffer, 384, 1. 
2, Pfeiffer, 509, 35. 
22 Pfeiffer, 384, 18. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 87 

will or the intellect contains the germ of eternal life. 
The will has two operations — desire and love. The work 
of the intellect is simple and therefore better ; its object 
is to know, and it never rests until it comes into con- 
tact with what it knows. " 23 "There is question as to 
which is superior, the intellect or the will. The superior- 
ity of the intellect lies in the fact that it understands 
things which at present differ from one another. It is 
through this understanding alone that the will effects 
anything. . . . And because the operation of the 
intellect stops here, the power of the will must now shine 
forth in this light and in the greatness of faith. Then, 
too, the will seeks to rise above all intelligence. This 
constitutes the superiority of the will. . . . The 
intellect now comes forth to perceive. It differentiates, 
and classifies, and places. When it has reached the sum- 
mit of its power, there yet remains a higher field into 
which it cannot penetrate and which it recognizes as 
higher. This it communicates to the will in virtue of the 
unity of its nature and not in virtue of its power. With 
this knowledge it elevates the will into this higher field, 
all through the unity of its nature. In this respect the 
understanding is superior to the will. But the will is 
superior as regards equality — there the will is at its 
highest and is a recipient from the Supreme Good, which 
is God Himself." 24 

The lower faculties act as mediums between the higher 
faculties and the outer senses and "therefore they ap- 
proach close to these latter. What the eye sees or the 
ear hears, that particular sense presents to the desires 
or concupiscible powers. If the image is properly 
received, it is offered to the second power, the considera- 
tion, the irascible power. After this has contemplated 
the image, it presents it to the reason, the power which 
differentiates. Thus the image is constantly refined for 



3 Pfeiffer, 106, 29. 
*Pfeiffer, 384, 6. 



88 MEISTER ECKEHART 

reception into the higher faculties. ' ' 25 In the lower con- 
sciousness man is wholly dependent on the experience of 
the senses ; his knowledge is always mediated by images, 
is always marked by a here and a now. When the powers 
of the soul come into contact with an object, they abstract 
from this object an image or a likeness which they ideate. 
In this manner they gain their knowledge of an object; 
therefore man possesses no innate ideas, his intellect is a 
yeritable tabula rasa. "Nothing can penetrate farther 
than this into the soul; the soul, moreover, does not 
occupy itself with any object whose image it has not 
ideated. It is only by means of the idea present in the 
mind . . . that the soul can approach near to crea- 
tures. If the soul wishes to recognize a stone, a rose, or 
a human being, or anything whatever, it must always 
begin by recalling a previous concept. Only in this man- 
ner can the soul unite itself closely with an object. But 
when such an image is formed, it must necessarily enter 
from without, through the senses. 26 

Since the soul can form no image of itself, it cannot, 
consequently, know itself. No human skill has ever 
fathomed what the soul is. "The word soul tells us as 
little about the nature of the soul, as the name God does 
about the Divinity. ' ,2r "As little as God can be com- 
prehended under names and words, just as little can 
the soul be comprehended under images and forms." 28 
"What is the nature of the soul? Note well: The final 
certainty in the soul regarding itself is its simple nature. 
The nature of the soul is so simple that space cannot 
hinder it." 29 "We may know a little about the soul, 
but what it really is in its basis, nobody knows. What- 
ever we know about this must be acquired through super- 
natural means ; it must be the work of grace. ' 

25 Pfeiffer, 383, 12. 

26 Pfeiffer, 5, 11. 

27 Sievers, op. cit, no. 16; Pfeiffer, 5, 19, 24. 

28 Pfeiffer 405 1. 

29 Pfeiffer, 383, 24. 

30 Pfeiffer, 228, 15. 



?30 



MEISTER ECKEHART 89 

The soul has two faces. "The upper one beholds Grod 
continually while the lower one gazes downwards and 
directs the senses. The former is the highest point of 
the soul ; it dwells in eternity and has nothing to do with 
time, for it knows nothing either of time or of the body. 
In this apex is concealed something like the source of all 
good and like a bright light that always illumines, and 
like a burning fire that always burns, and this fire is 
naught else but the Holy Spirit." 31 "The soul is so 
noble, because it reaches out to time and eternity. If 
it inclines more to temporal things, it becomes fickle; 
if it keeps to what is eternal, it grows steadfast and 
strong; and with the strength and steadfastness it rises 
above temporal things." 32 These two faces correspond 
to what St. Augustine calls the higher and lower reason, 
the former of which is intent on the contemplation of 
things eternal, while the lower is busied with the dis- 
posal of temporal affairs. 

It is in this basis of the soul, whither no creature has 
ever penetrated, that the faculties originate. Eckehart 
calls this basis of the soul by various names as, "apex 
of the soul," 33 "spark," 34 "glimmering," 35 "mens,"™ 
"man of the soul," 37 "reason," 38 "a power of the soul in 
which God is ever present," 39 "it is the highest and the 
lowest in the soul," 40 "a nameless something," 41 "a 
light." 42 "I have at times said that there is a power 
in the soul which alone is free. Sometimes I have called 
it a tabernacle of the spirit; sometimes a light of the 
mind; sometimes a spark; but I say now it is neither 



31 Pfeiffer, 59, 4; 250, 37. 
"Sievers, op. cit., no. 11. 
"Pfeiffer, 52, 39. 
"Pfeiffer, 139, 7; 392, 20. 
"Pfeiffer, 79, 6. 
"Pfeiffer, 670 38. 
"Pfeiffer, 199, 25. 
"Sievers, op. cit, p. 377. 
,9 Pfeiffer, 44, 25. 
40 Pfeiffer, 207, 5. 
"Pfeiffer, 306, 9. 
"Pfeiffer, 410, 35; 412, 25. 



90 MEISTER ECKEHART 

this nor that ; it is higher than this or that, higher than 
the heavens above the earth. " 43 Eckehart also employs 
the word ' ' synteresis. ' ' 44 

His use of the term "scintilla" — the spark — clearly 
shows its derivation from "synteresis"; he describes it 
as a light from above. 45 He also speaks of this light as 
something uncreated, as closely akin to God. "I have 
often spoken of a light in the soul which is uncreated 
and uncreatable. " 46 "I affirm that there is something 
above the soul's created nature ... so clearly re- 
lated to God as to be one with Him. . . . All that is 
created or is creatable is nothing. But that something 
is far removed from all creation and from all that can 
be created." 47 This doctrine of the uncreated something 
in the soul is the twenty-seventh article condemned by 
John XXII. 48 

Here it might be asked how the soul apprehends God. 
"The cherubim denote wisdom, that is knowledge, which 
brings God into the soul and leads the soul to God. 
But it cannot bring the soul into God. Therefore God 
does not perform His divine work in the cognitive faculty, 
by which the soul comprehends things according to time 
and space, for He operates as God and in a divine man- 
ner. Then the highest power, which is love, comes for- 
ward and enters into God, and leads the soul with the cog- 
nitive power and with all its faculties into God and unites 
them to Him. Then God operates above the powers of the 
soul, not as in the soul, but as in God." 49 "Nothing so 
prevents the soul from knowing God as time and space. 



43 Pfeiffer, 46, 3. 

"Pfeiffer, 113, 40. All the scholastics from the days of William of 
Auvergne designate the synteresis as "scintilla conscientiae." St. 
Bonaventure defines it as "apex mentis seu scintilla." Hermann of 
Prjtzlar speaks of it as a power or a faculty in the soul. 

45 R. Leiher, Name und Begriff der Synteresis. Philosophisches 
Jahrbuch, 1912 p. 374. 

48 Pfeiffer, 193, 16. 

47 Pfeiffer, 234, 36; 286, 17. 

48 AIiquid est in anima, quod est increatum et increabile; si tota 
anima esset talis, esset increata et increahilis, et hoc est intellectus. 

49 Pfeiffer, 153, 26. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 91 

Since time and space are parts and God is one, the soul 
in order to know God must transcend time and space ; for 
God is neither this nor that, as creatures are in their 
manif oldness ; God is one. If the soul is to perceive 
God, it must not perceive anything in time; for while 
the soul regards time or space or any image, it can 
never behold God. That the eye may recognize color, it 
must itself be without any color. If the soul is to know 
God, it must have no intercourse with nothingness. He 
who knows God knows also that all creatures are noth- 
ing. When one creature is compared with another it 
may appear beautiful and to be something, but when it 
is compared with God it is nothing.'' 50 It is only when 
the soul casts itself into the depths of its own nothing- 
ness that it can through grace know God as He is ; 51 then 
will God so diffuse Himself into the soul that the light 
of His presence will overflow into the soul's faculties. 52 
And this is the Divine Birth in the soul. 

A summary of Eckehart's teaching in regard to the 
soul shows it to embrace the following points: (1) The 
human soul is an image of the triune God in its three- 
fold power and its simple nature. (2) The soul is simple 
and spiritual, the substantial form of the body. (3) The 
soul operates through its faculties. (4) The lower facul- 
ties are the reason, the irascible, and the concupiscible 
powers. (5) The higher faculties are the memory, the 
intellect, and the will. The memory is the receptive 
power. The intellect is the superior part of the soul ; its 
object is to know. Eckehart distinguishes between the 
active and the passive intellect. The will is free, even 
God does not force it. (6) The lower faculties act as 
mediums between the higher faculties and the outer 
senses. (7) The soul depends for its knowledge on the 
experience of the senses, consequently it can never know 



60 Pfeiffer, 222, 24. 
sl Pfeiffer, 513, 12. 
52 Pfeiffer, 11, 35. 



92 MEISTER ECKEHART 

itself. (8) The basis of the soul, in which God is ever 
present, is something uncreated and uncreatable ; a prop- 
osition condemned as heretical. (9) The soul does not 
apprehend God by the cognitive power but by love, which 
leads the soul with all its faculties into God and unites 
it to Him. 



CHAPTEE IX 

THE MYSTIC UNION OK THE DIVINE BIRTH IN THE SOUL 

The soul's constant and insatiable longing for happi- 
ness, its restless, yea, often fruitless search after this 
highest good in the things of earth, renders it all the 
more eager to attain it where alone it can be found — in 
God. Eckehart expresses this earnest desire of the soul 
in many places of his works. "The soul is created for 
so high and great a good that it cannot possibly be at 
rest, but is ever hastening forward to arrive at this 
eternal bliss, which is God, and for which alone it was 
created." 1 "If God were to give my soul all that He 
ever created or may yet create, and did not give Himself, 
my soul should not be content and I could not be happy. " 2 

Eckehart terms this union of the soul with God the 
Divine Birth in the soul of the just. All his thoughts 
seem to circle continually around this, for him, all- 
important truth and to seek for some new expression, 
some new means, of making this Divine Birth intelligible 
to his hearers. The birth of God in the soul and of the 
soul in God is of such paramount importance, he teaches, 
that it is for this alone that we pray and fast, and per- 
form good works ; in a word are Christians, and for this 
alone God became incarnate. The Sacred Scriptures 
were written and the world was created that this twofold 
birth might take place — God in the soul and the soul 
in God. 3 

Since this intimate union with God is the ardent desire 
of the soul, how, it may be asked, can the soul realize 
this innate longing? The preceding chapter shows how 
the soul by means of its various faculties and powers 
comes into contact with the exterior world. The soul 
projects itself through the senses outwards to creatures, 



1 Pfeiffer, 178, 9. 
'Pfeiffer, 32 10. 
s Sievers, op. cit, p. 377; Pfeiffer, 104, 27. 

93 



94 MEISTER ECKEHART 

by wliom it is drawn downwards; hence the soul that 
wishes to arrive at the mystic union must follow a course 
directly opposite. It must withdraw and concentrate 
itself inwards and then take an ascending direction. The 
deep abyss of the soul in which God reposes never opens 
outwardly; it is the sanctum sanctorum open only to 
God, into which no image of the exterior world can pene- 
trate to disturb its sacred stillness. Here in this abyss 
of the soul, God the Father begets His only-begotten Son. 
But how and when does this birth of the Son take place! 
This occurs only when the soul wholly renounces the 
affairs of time and completely abandons itself to God 
and His providence. Hence we can readily see why 
Eckehart lays such great stress on the virtues of renun- 
ciation and self-denial. Before his time, the Victorines, 
and after him, all the great German mystics, for instance, 
Tauler and Suso, as well as the noted Spanish mystics, 
St. John of the Cross and the seraphic St. Teresa, not to 
speak of innumerable others since their day, all lay down 
the same rule of renunciation even to death of self, the 
sine qua non of the mystic union. 

It must be admitted that a life which withdraws itself 
from the shadow of deliberate faults, which labors to 
free itself from imperfections and all returns of self- 
love, which submits besides to the purifying fire of a 
severe and continual mortification, which nourishes itself 
by prayer, and becomes habitually more recollected and 
fervent; such a life predisposes more than any other to 
the highest graces of prayer. Such a preparation, if it 
is not sufficient, is at least morally necessary. 4 

This preparation although negative, is in reality a very 
active conflict with self, a battle unto death against dis- 
orderly inclinations, against all that opposes the reign 
of Christ in the soul. Eckehart considers total renuncia- 
tion, the setting aside of every form of egoism, and the 

4 Leonce de Grandmaison, La Religion personelle. Etudes, CXXXV, 
p. 333. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 95 

giving up of every creature in order to arrive at union 
with the Divinity as the supreme end of religion. He 
teaches that suffering is the most efficacious means to 
attain this end. 5 The first requisite for him who wishes 
to be united to God is ' ' that he deny himself in all things, 
that he be attached to nothing, that his senses . . . 
dwell on no creature either in time or in eternity." 6 
' ' God will not be born except in a soul that has trampled 
all greatness under foot. ' ' 7 That God may operate freely 
in a soul this renunciation must be complete, it must 
extend to all things ; such a one rests upon pure nothing- 
ness/' 8 "True renunciation demands that in all that 
may happen, whether agreeable or disagreeable, honor- 
able or disgraceful, the spirit be as immovable as a great 
mountain in a light breeze.' ' 9 "And no one can come to 
this union so long as he is affected by the least temporal 
thing, although it is no more than the point of a needle 
can hold. No one can enter into the Godhead unless 
he is as void as he was when he emanated from God. ' no 

This renunciation to be complete. must extend not only 
to exterior things, but to oneself as well. ' ■ Our souls, too, 
must be sorrowful even unto death, until all self-will 
and self-interest be killed within us. When the soul has 
died thus to its desires and its own interests and is buried 
in God, then it is hidden from and unknown to all crea- 
tures and it can never again be saddened." 11 In this 
manner must the soul die to a sensual, agitated world, 
liable to corruption and destined to perish. Not once 
only must the poor struggling soul die this death, but, 
as Tauler says, a thousand deaths will be necessary before 
the soul is wholly purified. Such a soul takes events, even 



5 Lichtenberger, Le Mysticisme Allemand. Revue des Cours et 
Conferences, 1910, p. 684. 

6 Pfeiffer, 197, 18. 

7 Pfeiffer, 151, 11. 

8 Pfeiffer, 490, 14. Everything outside of God is not God, therefore 
nothing (non-being). 

8 Pfeiffer, 486, 36. \ 

10 Pfeiffer, 77, 23. 

"Pfeiffer 242. 19. 



96 MEISTER ECKEHART 

untoward ones, from whatever source they come, as sent 
by God for its greater sanctification. "You must know 
that to those who have given themselves to God and with 
all diligence seek His will, whatever God gives them is 
necessarily the best; you may be as certain of this as 
that God lives. Should something else seem better, yet 
it could not be so good for thee, for God wants it in this 
way and not in that, and therefore this way must neces- 
sarily be the best for thee." 12 This mystic death is an 
experience common to all the mystics. St. Teresa fre- 
quently refers to a period when all preceding graces are 
forgotten, to a state of death, of troubles, of disgust, 
stupor, and indifference, a state in which the soul is pow- 
erless to pray; nevertheless it continues its accustomed 
exercise of piety and virtue. 13 St. John of the Cross 
treats of this mystic death in the Two Nights of the Soul. 
Perhaps no one has left a more graphic description of 
this painful state than Bl. Henry Suso. 

Eckehart does not for an instant suppose that this 
continual self-denial implies no feeling on our part. 
"Now our good people say we ought to become so perfect 
that no love can move us, and that we must be impas- 
sable to love and sorrow. They wrong us; I say there 
never was a saint so great that he could not be moved by 
events. Thou imaginest because words please or dis- 
please thee, that thou art imperfect? Such is not the 
case ; Christ Our Lord felt them, as He showed when He 
said: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death. ' Words 
pained him so much, that if the sorrows of all creatures 
fell upon one creature, they would not be so great as 
was Our Lord's sorrow; this was on account of the nobil- 
ity of His nature and the sacred union of the divine and 
human natures. Therefore, I say, there never was and 
there never will be a saint whom sorrow does not pain 



12 Pfeiffer, 134, 8. 

"Way of Perfection, ch. XXVIII; Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, 
ch. I, 3, 13, 14. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 97 

and love does not please." 14 And all this renunciation 
must be practised for God alone, without any thought of 
reward, abandoning all such considerations to His good 
pleasure. Eckehart calls such souls merchants, "who 
fast, watch, pray, and perform other good works and 
this only that the Lord may give them something in 
return, or do something that is pleasing to them; these 
are all merchants." 15 "A devout person must not seek 
himself in his good works, but God's honor alone. So 
long as in thy good works thou art intent on thyself, or 
on one person more than on another, so long God's will 
is not thy will." 16 

"What is the prayer of a heart so completely detached? 
I answer: Detachment and simplicity cannot in fact 
pray. For he who prays, either asks God to grant him 
something or else he desires that God take something 
away from him. But the wholly detached heart desires 
nothing and possesses nothing from which it wishes to 
be delivered. Hence it is void of all prayer, and its 
prayer consists only in being one with God." 17 This last 
quotation embodies some of the principles of Quietism. 
The Quietist demands that when the soul is in the state 
of "quietude" the mind be wholly inactive; that it no 
longer think or act on its own account, but remain passive 
while God acts within it. In fact the very desire of 
activity is offensive to God, one must abandon himself 
entirely to God. 18 The great virtue of the Quietists is 
conformity to the will of God, complete abandonment, 
literally asking nothing, desiring nothing. It will be 
noted that seven 19 of the condemned propositions contain 
quietistic tendencies. Four (XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX) 
which relate more particularly to good works are men- 



"Pfeiffer, 52, 18. 
"Pfeiffer, 34, 12. 
16 Pfeiffer, 55, 39. 

"Pfeiffer, 490, 27; Biittner, op. cit., p. 27. 

18 E. A. Pace, Quietism. Catholic Encyclopedia XI, p. 608. New 
York 19X3. 

"Articles VIII, IX, XIV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX. 



98 MEISTER ECKEHART 

tioned in the chapter on "Virtue and Good Works," while 
the eighth is found in the chapter on "Sin and the Be- 
demption. ' ' The following corresponds to the ninth prop- 
osition: 20 "I reflected lately whether I ought to take or 
to desire anything of God. I shall indeed consider it 
well; for were I to accept anything from God, I should 
be beneath God as a servant beneath his master. We 
shall not be thus in eternal life." 21 

Mystic writers lay great stress on the cessation of dis- 
cursive action ; for there can be no mystic intuition until 
all conscious and reflective thought ceases, until the spirit, 
void of created images, withdraws and concentrates itself 
in its very abyss. It is here in the basis of the soul that 
God dwells and where the void and passive spirit plunges 
into the uncreated image of God to seek peace and rest. 
This is why Eckehart calls the state of passivity the 
secret passage of the soul to the Divinity. In his writ- 
ings he frequently refers to this interior void and passiv- 
ity of the soul. "This know for certain; if anyone 
else than Jesus alone wishes to speak in this temple, then 
Jesus is silent, as though He were not at home in the 
soul, for there are strange guests present with whom the 
soul prefers to converse. But if Jesus is to speak, the 
soul must be solitary and silent if it desires to hear 
Him." 22 "Thou canst not without great injury to thy- 
self turn away from this state to another." 23 The more 
void of images thou art, the more receptive thou wilt be 
for His operations ; and the more thou withdrawest thy- 
self inwardly and art unmindful of all things, the nearer 
thou art to this operation." 24 

The mystical union of the soul with God, or as Ecke- 



20 Ego nuper cogitavi, utrum ego vellem aliquid recipere a deo vel 
desiderare: ego volo de hoc valde bene deliberare, quia ubi ego essem 
accipiens a deo, ibi essem ego sub eo vel infra eum, sicut unus famulus 
vel servus, et ipse sicut dominus in dando et sic non debemus esse in 
eterna vita. 

2, Pfeiffer, 205, 36. 

22 Pfeiffer, 36, 30. 

23 Pfeiffer, 27, 16. 

24 Pfeiffer, 7, 39. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 99 

hart calls it, the Divine Birth in the soul, depends entirely 
on God; no human effort can effect this transcending 
grace. The mystic feels he is not the master of these 
states, neither in the beginning, the middle, nor the end, 
since they appear without any effort on his part, sud- 
denly, and apparently without any cause. All that he 
can do is merely negative, is to remove the obstacles that 
oppose this union; he can in some measure prepare his 
soul by renunciation and great purity of heart; but the 
union itself must always be the work of God alone. 
"Whoever reposes in God does not enjoy this repose 
because he willed it." 25 "God performs this work in 
the innermost part of the soul and so secretly that neither 
angel nor saint can know it; and the soul itself can do 
nothing but remain passive; it is God's work alone." 26 
"If this birth is to take place in thee, it must proceed 
entirely from God. All thy efforts must lie in abeyance, 
all thy powers must serve His aims and not thine; if 
the work is to be perfected, God alone must perform it 
and thou must merely suffer it." 27 

Since this Divine Birth depends solely on the good 
pleasure of God, He can give it and can withdraw it 
just as He wills. 28 "The more frequently this birth 
occurs in the soul, the more closely is the soul united 
to God. God is born in the soul that is void of images 
by revealing Himself to it in a new manner, ... in 
an enlightment that is the divine light itself.'" 729 Knowl- 
edge and union with God are the two elements which 
the mystic experience always includes ; a knowledge that 
has nothing intellectual, nothing discursive; it is God 
revealing Himself to the soul with such a great light 
that it overflows into the faculties and even into the 
exterior man. Eckehart goes so far as to say that God 



"Pfeiffer, 130, 35. 
26 Pfeiffer, 160, 16. 
27 Pfeiffer, 25, 11. 
28 Pfeiffer, 18 2. 
29 Biittner, op. cit, p. 27. 



100 MEISTER ECKEHART 

created the soul for the one purpose that in it His 
beloved Son might be born ; ' ' and whenever and wherever 
this birth takes place, it is more joyful to God than the 
creation of heaven and earth, because the soul is nobler 
and greater than the heavens." 30 "When the will is so 
united as to be uniform, then the Eternal Father gen- 
erates His only-begotten Son in Himself and in me. Why 
in Himself? Why in me? Then I am one with Him and 
He cannot exclude me ; in this operation the Holy Ghost 
receives from me as well as from God, His nature, His 
work, and His being, because I am in God. If He does 
not take it from me neither does He take it from God; 
He cannot exclude me in any way whatever." 31 How 
does the Father generate His Son in the soul? As crea- 
tures do by means of image and likeness? "Not at all. 
But in the very same way that He produces Him eter- 
nally. God the Father has a perfect contemplation and 
a thorough knowledge of Himself but not by means of 
an image. And thus the Father generates the Son in 
the union of the divine nature. In this manner and in 
no other does God the Father generate His Son in the 
basis and essence of the soul and unite it to Himself." 32 
"God enters into the soul, and there causes a vehement 
outburst of divine love, which bears the soul back to God. 
. . . When the soul with its intellect comprehends 
anything in regard to God, it passes this knowledge on to 
the will, which then so absorbs it as to become one 
with it. Then the will conveys it to the memory. Thus 
is God borne into the soul. . . . This outburst of 
divine love now overflows into the soul, causing the higher 
faculties to diffuse themselves into the lower ones and 
these into the outer man and thus elevating him out of 
all that is low, so that he desires only what is spiritual. 
For as the spirit operates according to the divine impulse, 



S0 Pfeiffer, 401, 5. 
81 Pfeiffer, 55, 22. 
S2 Pfeiffer, 6, 5. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 101 

so must the exterior man operate according to the impulse 
of the spirit. Oh, wonder after wonder when I reflect on 
the union of the soul with God! . . . The outburst 
of divine love which inundates the soul, carries it out 
of itself into its origin, into God." 33 "In this manner 
have love and the sweetness of devotion allured the spirit 
out of itself by means of the simple spark it possesses ! 
What joy for the soul! I can only say that the glance 
which passes without interruption from the spirit into 
the simple Godhead, that the flux which flows unceas- 
ingly from the Godhead into the void spirit, so com- 
pletely transforms the spirit into God and unites it to 
Him, that it receives as an equal from an equal. The 
delight the spirit experiences in this embrace is above 
all comprehension. I am unable to say aught else than 
that the spirit is then at the summit of its power and 
greatness." 34 

The delight which the divine generation operates in the 
soul is so ineffable, so far beyond every human joy, that 
an experimental knowledge alone can give us any idea 
of the superabundant happiness the privileged soul 
enjoys. It must be remembered that according to all the 
great mystics God often favors the soul when in ecstasy 
with intellectual visions, such that "it is not fitting for 
man while living in the world to understand them in a 
way that can be told;" 35 it can easily be comprehended, 
therefore, how the mystic falls at times into exaggera- 
tions of speech. Whenever Eckehart speaks of this 
delight, transcending all earthly bliss, he seems to find 
the most extravagant language too cold, too inexpressive. 
"If a person who has renounced much for God were yet 
to suffer all that mankind combined has ever suffered, 
and were to endure this until death, and if God were then 
to give him one instant of divine contemplation, his joy 



83 Pfeiffer, 385, 17. 
"Pfeiffer, 392, 19. 

3B St. Teresa, The Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, ch. IV, 5, 6, 12, 
13. Way of Perfection, ch. XXXIV. 



102 MEISTER ECKEHART 

would be so great that all his suffering and poverty 
should seem to him too little." 36 "He whom this glance 
has never wounded, his soul has never been wounded by 
the love of God." 37 

The soul favored with the mystic union finds itself 
powerfully aided in overcoming defects, in seeking God 
alone, in being freed from harassing doubts, by the divine 
light which illuminates the understanding and teaches 
the soul the most profound truths. But let us hear 
Meister Eckehart tell this in his own burning words : 
"When the soul is wholly united to God and plunged, 
as it were, in the divine nature, it sees all its difficulties 
and defects and unsteadiness vanish; it finds itself sud- 
denly renewed in a divine life, well ordered in all its 
habits even in its very virtues." 38 "The first effect that 
the sight of the Holy Ghost produces in the soul is that 
all its sins are remitted, and the soul and all things be- 
come contemptible in its own sight." 39 "I believe such a 
person incapable of falling into mortal sin; for he would 
suffer the most shameful death rather than commit the 
least mortal sin. . . . Yea, he is not able to commit 
a venial sin or to permit it knowingly either in himself 
or in another, when he can prevent it." 40 "In this birth 
God pours Himself with such abundance of light into the 
soul, in the essence and basis of which it so increases as 
to overflow into the soul's powers and even into the 
exterior man. . . . Thou canst recognize it for thy 
heart feels itself strangely moved and turned away from 
the world; how could this be effected except through the 
radiation of the light, which is so softened, which pro- 
duces such delight, that everything else which is not God 
or does not refer to Him becomes tiresome to thee? 
. . . As soon as God with His truth interiorly touches 



•Tfeiffer, 44, 34. 
. S7 Pfeiffer, 401, 34. 
"Pfeiffer, 154, 3; 37, 27. 
S9 Pfeiffer, 242, 26. 
40 Pfeiffer, 10, 17. 






MEISTER ECKEHART 103 

the basis of the soul, light penetrates into the faculties ; 
and that person learns more in an instant than anyone 
could teach him." 41 "Whatever perfection is to enter 
the soul, whether of divine illumination, of grace, or of 
happiness, must all come through this birth, there is no 
other means. Await this birth in thee and thou wilt 
have every good, every delight, every comfort, every 
being, and every truth. Neglect this one thing and thou 
wilt neglect every good and every beatitude." 42 

When this birth takes place in the soul then "each of 
its faculties becomes an image of the Divine Persons; 
the will of the Holy Ghost, the cognitive powers of the 
Son, and the memory of the Father. And its nature 
becomes the likeness of the divine nature." 43 "The Son 
comes into the soul and is born there with all that 
God can accomplish — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all 
in pure being." 44 "When the Father generates His Son 
in me, then I am the same son and not another." 45 This 
last quotation is the substance of the twentieth con- 
demned proposition. 46 "The Father generates me as 
His son. . . . All that God does is one; therefore 
He generates me as His son without any distinction"; 47 
this is the twenty-second condemned article 48 and is 
closely related to the following: "That man has the 
same essence, and nature, and substance, and wisdom, and 
joy, and all that God has. Then the same nature of the 
Son is his and is in him." 49 "We shall be so transformed 
into God as the bread in the sacrament is changed into 
Our Lord's Body. ... I shall be so changed into Him 



"Pfeiffer 11, 35; 221, 24. 

42 Pfeiffer, 11, 11. 

43 Pfeiffer, 386, 34. 

44 Pfeiffer, 166, 17. 

45 Pfeiffer, 137, 16; 70, 12. 

46 Quod bonus homo est unigenitus filius dei. 

4V Pfeiffer, 205, 8. 

48 Pater generat me suum filium et eundem filium. Quicquid deus 
operatur, hoc est unum, propter hoc generat ipse me suum filium sine 
omni distinctione. 

49 Pfeiffer, 41, 24. 



104 MEISTER ECKEHART 

that He will make me the same being as Himself ; by the 
living God it is true that then there will be no distinc- 
tion. ' ' 50 This last is the exact text of the tenth condemned 
proposition. 51 ' ' The man who rises above time into eter- 
nity, cooperates with God in all that He created thou- 
sands of years ago"; 52 here is found substantially the 
thirteenth condemned proposition. 53 

Thus man appears as the organ of the perfect self- 
birth of God. Man must be born as the son of God, for 
no other purpose than that the Son of God may thus 
be born in human shape in him. Man is to become God 
in order that in him God may become man. Here we 
have the pantheistic idea of emanation which lies at 
the root of all this mysticism. In this theory the essen- 
tial difference between the incarnation of God in Christ 
and His incarnation in all other men disappears. If, 
by the birth of the Son of God in us, we become sons of 
God, not by adoption, but by nature; it is not easy to 
understand what prerogative Christ enjoys beyond our- 
selves. Indeed Eckehart teaches that we possess every- 
thing, without exception, that God imparted to Christ, 
the Man-God. 54 "All that God ever gave His only-begot- 
ten Son, He gave the same to me and no less perfectly 
than to Him." 55 Therefore what the Holy Scripture 
says of Christ may be said of every saintly man. J 



56 



60 Pfeiffer 205, 21. 

51 Nos transformamur totaliter in deum et convertimur in eum; 
simili modo, sicut in sacramento panis convertitur in corpus Christi; 
sic ego convertor in eum, quod ipse me operatur suum esse unum, non 
simile; per viventem deum verum est, quod ibi nulla est distinctio. 

52 Pfeiffer, 190, 37; 199, 12; 207, 13. 

B3 Quicquid proprium est divine nature, hoc totum proprium est 
homini iusto et divino; propter hoc iste homo operatur quicquid deus 
operatur, et creavit una cum deo celum et terram, et est generator 
verbi eterni, et deus sine tali homine nesciret quicquam facere. 

"Stockl, History of Philosophy, p. 440. Trans, by T. A. Finlay. 
London, 1903. 

55 Pfeiffer, 56, 18. The eleventh condemned proposition. Quicquid 
deus pater dedit filio suo unigenito in humana natura, hoc totum dedit 
michi: hie nihil excipio, nee unionem nee sanctitatem, sed totum dedit 
michi sicut sibi. 

56 The twelfth condemned article. Quicquid dicit sacra scriptura de 
Christo, hoc etiam totum verificatur de omni bono et divino homine. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 105 

In one of his sermons on the following text : "In all 
things I sought rest," 57 Eckehart gives some of the dif- 
ferences between the active and the contemplative life. 
"The contemplation and love of the interior person may 
last longer, although it is very short in the highest con- 
templation, for this great influx of light cannot last long ; 
it passes quickly with the speed of lightning. St. Augus- 
tine says : The ordinary exercise of the interior per- 
son in knowledge and love may continue longer than 
the exercise of the exterior person. The life of the 
interior man in its repose and leisure of spirit resem- 
bles somewhat the repose of the eternal Divine Being. 
. . . But the life of the exterior man is one continual 
motion. Therefore Mary sat and Martha went about 
the house. . . . The inner life is more at peace with 
itself than the outer life. . . . Hence St. Luke says 
that Martha, who represents the life of the exterior man, 
was saddened with many cares ; although all this is done 
for GJ-od, nevertheless, as is experienced in works of 
mercy, it engenders much sadness. The inner life is 
beyond measure happier than the exterior life." 58 

To these advantages Eckehart adds that the contem- 
plative life is of itself more desirable ; it is wholly directed 
towards divine things ; it is confined to the highest mental 
powers ; and finally, Our Lord Himself has said that Mary 
hath chosen the better part. "Although Mary received 
the praise of having chosen the better part, still Martha's 
life was also very useful, for she served Christ and His 
Apostles. St. Thomas says: 'The active life is then 
something better than the contemplative, when we pour 
out in love and action what we have garnered in contem- 
plation.' But one and the same thing is present: we 
take from the same basis in which contemplation resides 
and whose content we fructify in action. In this way 
the real aim of contemplation is accomplished. Although 



BT Ecchis. XXIV, 11. 
s8 Pfeiffer, 329, 10. 



106 MEISTER ECKEHART 

there is a change from the one to the other, it is all the 
same thing; it proceeds from the same source, which is 
God, and returns again to the same source, to God. 59 
Eckehart seems here to place the active life above the 
contemplative, but this is only apparent. He only states 
with St. Thomas that when contemplation is over, the 
person should give out in action what he gathered in 
contemplation. 

As regards Eckehart 's doctrine concerning the mystic 
union, it is to be noted that he agrees with all the mys- 
tics who preceded him as to the distinct preparation 
necessary on the part of man, namely: the withdrawal 
and concentration of all the faculties in the basis of the 
soul ; complete abandonment to God in all things, renounc- 
ing for this end every creature, and extending this self- 
denial even to death of self. Eckehart shows clearly 
that this self-annihilation does not imply the death of 
all feeling, for one will always experience pleasure when 
anything delights, and pain when it hurts. Further- 
more, this abandonment must lead one to work for God 
alone with no thought of anything else, not even to ask 
for any grace or favor, a doctrine the Church condemned 
as quietistic. In the third place the soul must be void 
of all images and be passive, if God is to speak. Ecke- 
hart also agrees with all the mystics that this union 
depends on God alone ; He alone can give and take it as 
He pleases. Indeed he goes so far as to say that the 
only reason why God created the soul is to bring forth 
in the soul His beloved Son. God generates His Son 
in the soul through knowledge and love. If this birth 
is a source of intense joy to the Father, it is of trans- 
cendent delight to the soul, a delight so ineffable that 
only he who has experienced it can understand and know 
it. The effects of this birth are truly marvelous: the 
soul sees its defects vanish; it seeks God alone ; its under- 
standing is illuminated, giving it a clear comprehension 



59 Pfeiffer, 18, 19. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 107 

of the most profound truths ; in a word, it is a source of 
perfection. 

Eckehart does not understand the sonship produced in 
the mystic union as that of adopted son of God but as 
a son of God by nature. There is absolutely no distinc- 
tion between the only-begotten Son of God and the soul 
in whom this divine generation has taken place. Hence 
this doctrine of the only-begotten Son of God contains 
seven of the propositions condemned by the Church, the 
X, XI, XII. XX, XXI, XXII. It need not be surprising 
that pantheistic expressions occur in this part of Ecke- 
hart 's teaching, as the subject of the ultimate return 
of the soul into God has frequently proved a danger for 
mystical speculation. 



CHAPTER X 

CONCLUSION 

The preceding chapters have shown that Eckehart 
is a scholastic as well as a mystic, and that although 
several of his doctrines have been condemned by the 
Church, he was not personally a heretic; hence he can- 
not be brought into any active connection with the here- 
tics of his day. He was a child of his time; and 
doubtless, the great religious ferment and the variety 
of doctrines abroad had some influence on his method 
of expressing his ideas. Bohmer believes that the fact 
of a special bull being issued to condemn a number of 
Eckehart 's propositions without any reference to former 
decisions, is sufficient proof that he was not considered 
as belonging to any heretical sect, and therefore not 
one of the Brethren of the Free Spirit. 1 

Is Meister Eckehart a precursor of the Protestant 
Reformation of the sixteenth century? This is the ques- 
tion that remains to be answered. Before replying, let 
us glance at some different opinions on this subject. 
Ullmann, after stating that although Eckehart 's doctrine 
could in persons of a less intellectual and profound nature 
produce the most morally destructive effects, adds, how- 
ever, that the penetration and boldness of his genius, 
as well as the deep piety of his nature, must at the same 
time be fully acknowledged. "Only it might perhaps 
be premature, on the score of this latter qualification, 
to class him as Arnold (Hist. Theol. Myst. Francof. 
1702, p. 306) has done with the precursors of the 
Reformation." 2 Leopold Ziegler does not hesitate to 
affirm that "The German Master was certainly no 
Protestant in the sense of the Reformation." 3 Inge 

'Bohmer, Meister Eckehart. Damaris, 1869, p. 89. 

2 Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation II, p. 29. Trans, by 
R. Menzies. Edinburgh, 1855. 

3 Ziegler, Die philosophische und religiose Bedeutung des Meister 
Eckehart. Preussisches Jahrbuch, March, 1904, vol. 115. 

108 



MEISTER ECKEHART 109 

believes that the hierarchy and its reverence for the 
priesthood had no significance for Eckehart ; that in this 
as in other ways he is a precursor of the Reformation. 4 
If the treatise, "Swester Katrei" be accepted as gen- 
uine, then it must be admitted that Eckehart 's greater 
reverence for the authority of a simple lay person in mat- 
ters purely spiritual than for the authority of the teach- 
ing Church, indicates a tendency towards a universal 
priesthood. But "Swester Katrei'' has been proved to 
be the work of some one of the heretical Beghards and 
was not written until after the death of Meister Eckehart. 
Lasson asserts that Eckehart 's doctrine through its 
ethics paved the way for the Reformation. 5 

The fundamental principles of Protestantism are justi- 
fication by faith and the universal priesthood of believ- 
ers. According to justification by faith, the sinner reaches 
out for a righteousness which is complete in itself, namely 
the exterior righteousness of Christ. He takes it with 
the "arm of faith" and puts it on as a cloak of grace. 
Hence his sins are not really forgiven, they are only 
covered over with this cloak. This faith, which justifies, 
is not a firm belief in God's revealed truth and prom- 
ises, but the infallible conviction that God, for the sake 
of Christ, will not impute to us our sins, but will con- 
sider and treat us as if we were really just and holy, 
although in our inner selves we remain the same sinners 
we were before. Hence faith alone suffices for justifica- 
tion; neither repentance nor penance, neither love of 
God nor good works nor any virtue is required. 

In direct opposition to this doctrine, Eckehart teaches 
that God does not justify the sinner without the latter 's 
cooperation. "He demands that the sinner help Him, 
for He will not sanctify thee without thy assistance." 6 
Man must repent of his sins ; 7 he must perform works of 



4 Inge, op. cit., p. 163. 

"Lasson, German Mysticism in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Cen- 
turies, tiberweg, History of Philosophy, I, p. 484. 
"Pfeiffer, 216, 25; 200, 35. 
7 Pfeiffer, 361, 13. 



110 MEISTER ECKEHART 

penance to atone for them; 8 he mnst exercise himself in 
the love of God, 9 in virtue and in good works. 10 He dis- 
tinctly teaches that good works are always necessary 11 
even if the soul has advanced far in the way of perfec- 
tion. Their value depends upon the intention wherewith 
they are performed; the greater the love that prompts 
them, the greater also the merit. This is the teaching 
of the Church, and it is a proof of the grossest ignorance 
of Catholic doctrine to suggest that we do not heed the 
interior disposition, the habitual direction of the per- 
sonal will, but attend chiefly to exterior performance 
of the work. In accordance with Catholic doctrine, Ecke- 
hart likewise teaches that it is sanctifying grace that con- 
stitutes inner righteousness and is the only formal cause 
of our sanctification. "A soul in the state of grace 
is pure and an image of God." 12 That he understands 
sanctifying grace as a habit or state of the soul is proved 
by the following: " Grace does not operate, it unites us 
to God"; 13 and this state lasts as long as the soul is 
free from grievous sin. " Mortal sin is the death of all 
grace." 14 Eckehart considers the Passion as the mer- 
itorious cause of grace (Cf. Ch. VI), for he says that 
Our Lord merited a superabundance of grace, more than 
sufficient to redeem the whole world. And finally, he 
teaches that the reception of the sacraments is the 
instrumental cause of grace. He frequently refers to 
the seven sacraments as "the means by which the soul 
is sanctified," 15 but man is more especially sanctified 
through the Blessed Eucharist. "The more frequently 
thou receivest the Holy Eucharist, the better and more 
salutary it is for thee. . . . Now thou wouldst object 



8 Pfeiffer, 29, 12; 22, 35. 
"Pfeiffer, B60, 38; 606, 31; 208, 22. 
10 Pfeiffer, 611, 11; 179, 1. 
"Pfeiffer, 607, 30; 19, 6. 
:2 Biittner, op. cit., p. 7. 
13 Ibid., p. 8. 
14 Pfeiffer, 217, 22. 
]5 Pfeiffer, 328, 13. 



MEISTER ECKEHART 111 

that thou art devoid of all feeling, and art indolent, and 
dost not dare approach thy Lord. The greater need thou 
hast to receive thy God, for He will sanctify thee and 
unite thee to Himself, for this sacrament is the very 
source and fount of grace." 16 Eckehart has written an 
entire treatise on the advantages of the Blessed 
Eucharist. 17 

The following is often quoted as a proof that Eckehart 
did not regard the sacraments as means of grace, but 
instead considered them an obstacle and hindrance to 
pure spirituality. "Sacrament means an exterior sign. 
He who stops at the exterior sign cannot arrive at the 
inner truth, for the seven means of grace direct us to 
the one truth. . . . Some good people are an obstacle to 
themselves by insisting too much on contrition and con- 
fession, and thus they dwell on the exterior sign and do 
not bestir themselves to reach the simple truth. ' n8 Ecke- 
hart does not imply that we must refrain from using 
the sacraments, he simply wishes to say that we must 
advance from the external opus operatum to the spiritual 
significance and effect of the sacrament. He who insists 
too strongly on the exterior sign stops at that which 
appeals to the senses ; it is this which draws us away from 
what is spiritual and so distracts us that we cannot 
pray in spirit and in truth. 

The whole trend of Eckehart 's doctrine, when judged 
impartially, and when the necessary allowance for his 
obscure and somewhat paradoxical style has been made, 
shows that he was neither consciously nor unconsciously 
a precursor of the Protestant Eeformation, but a humble, 
loyal son of his mother, the Catholic Church. He erred, 
it is true, but let it not be forgotten that in his public 
retractation he unconditionally submitted his whole doc- 
trinal system to the infallible authority of the Church. 



10 Pfeiffer, 565, 24. 
"Pfeiffer, 373. 
18 Pfeiffer, 239, 5. 



APPENDIX 

THE CONDEMNED ARTICLES 

1. Interrogatus quandoque, quare deus mundum non 
prius produxerit, respondit tunc, sicut nunc, quod deus 
non potuit primo producere mundum, quia res non potest 
agere, antequam sit; unde quamcito deus fuit, tamcito 
mundum creavit. 

2. Item concedit potest mundum fuisse ab eterno. 

3. Item simul et semel, quando deus fuit, quando filium 
sibi coeternum per omnia coequalem deum genuit, etiam 
mundum creavit. 

4. Item in omni opere, etiam malo, malo inquam tarn 
pene, quam culpe, manifestatur et relucet equaliter 
gloria dei. 

5. Item vituperans quempiam vituperio ipso peccato 
vituperii laudat deum, et quo plus vituperat et gravius 
peccat, amplius deum laudat. 

6. Item deum ipsum quis blasphemando deum lauuat. 

7. Item quod petens hoc aut hoc malum petit et male, 
quia negationem boni et negationem dei petit, et orat 
deum sibi negari. 

8. Qui non intendunt res, nee honores, nee utilitatem, 
nee devotionem internam, nee sanctitatem, nee premium, 
nee regnum celorum, sed omnibus hiis renuntiaverunt, 
etiam quod suum est, in illis hominibus honoratur deus. 

9. Ego nuper cogitavi, utrum ego vellem aliquid reci- 
pere a deo vel desiderare : ego volo de hoc valde bene 
deliberare, quia ubi ego essem accipiens a deo, ibi essem 
ego sub eo vel infra eum, sicut unus famulus vel servus, 
et ipse sicut dominus in dando, et sic non debemus esse in 
eterna vita. 

10. Nos transformamur totaliter in deum et converti- 
mur in eum ; simili modo, sicut in sacramento panis con- 
vertitur in corpus Christi: sic ego convertor in eum, 
quod ipse me operatur suum esse unum, non simile ; per 

112 



MEISTER ECKEHART 113 

viventem deum verum est, quod ibi nulla est distinctio. 

11. Quicquid deus pater dedit filio suo unigenito in 
humana natura, hoc totum dedit michi : hie nihil excipio, 
nee unionem nee sanctitatem, sed totum dedit michi 
sicut sibi. 

12. Quicquid dicit sacra scriptura de Christo, hoc etiam 
totum verificatur de omni bono et divino homine. 

13. Quicquid proprium est divine nature, hoc totum 
proprium est homini iusto et divino; propter hoc iste 
homo operatur quicquid deus operatur, et creavit una 
cum deo celum et terrain, et est generator verbi eterni, 
et deus sine tali homine nesciret quicquam facere. 

14. Bonus homo debet sic conf ormare voluntatem suam 
voluntati divine, quod ipse velit quicquid deus vult : quia 
deus vult aliquo modo me peccasse, nollem ego, quod ego 
peccata non commisissem, et hec est vera penitentia. 

15. Si homo commisisset mille peccata mortalia, si talis 
homo esset recte dispositus, non deberet velle se ea non 
commisisse. 

16. Deus proprie non precipit actum exteriorem. 

17. Actus exterior non est proprie bonus nee divinus, 
nee operatur ipsum deus proprie neque parit. 

18. Afreramus fructum actuum non exteriorum, qui 
nos bonos non faciunt, sed actuum interiorum, quos pater 
in nobis manens facit et operatur. 

19. Deus animas amat, non opus extra. 

20. Quod bonus homo est unigenitus filius dei. 

21. Homo nobilis est ille unigenitus filius dei, quern 
pater eternaliter genuit. 

22. Pater generat me suum filium et eundem filium. 
Quicquid deus operatur, hoc est unum, propter hoc gen- 
erat ipse me suum filium sine omni distinctione. 

23. Deus est unus omnibus modis et secundum omnem 
rationem, ita ut in ipso non sit invenire aliquam multi- 
tudinem in intellectu vel extra intellectum : qui enim duo 
videt vel distinctionem videt, deum non videt, deus unus 
est extra numerum et supra numerum, nee ponit in unum 



114 MEISTEE ECKEHART 

cum aliquo. Sequitur: nulla igitur distinctio in ipso 
deo esse potest ant intelligi. 

24. Omnis distinctio est a deo aliena, neqne in natnra 
neqne in personis ; probatur : qnia natnra ipsa est nna et 
hoc unum, et qnelibet persona est una et id ipsnm unuin, 
qnod natura. 

25. Cnm dicitur; Simon diligis me pins hiis? sensns 
est, id est, plnsqnam istos, et bene qnidem, sed non per- 
fecte. In primo enim et secnndo et pins et minus et 
gradus est et ordo, in uno autem nee gradus est nee ordo. 
Qui igitur diligit deum plus quam proximum, bene quidem, 
sed nondum perf ecte. 

26. Omnes creature sunt unum purum nichil : non dico, 
quod sint quid modicum vel aliquid, sed quod sint unum 
purum nichil. 

Objectum preterea extitit dicto Ekardo, quod predica- 
verat alios duos articulos sub hiis verbis : 

1. Aliquid est in anima, quod est increatum et increa- 
bile; si tota anima esset talis, esset increata et increa- 
bilis, et hoc est intellectus. 

2. Quod deus non est bonus neque melior neque opti- 
mus ; ita male dico, quandocunque voco deum bonum, ac 
si ego album vocarem nigrum. 



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VITA 

The writer of this dissertation, Sister Odilia, S.N.D. 
(Mary Elizabeth Funke), was born in Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, on January 2, 1866. She attended the schools 
of the Sisters of Notre Dame in her native city until 
July 15, 1882, when she entered the novitiate of the Sis- 
ters of Notre Dame at Cincinnati, Ohio. After her pro- 
fession she taught in various schools of the Order in 
Cincinnati, Hamilton, Philadelphia, South Boston, and 
Holyoke; since November, 1900, she has taught German 
at Trinity College, Washington, D. C. She obtained the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1912 from Trinity College 
and the degree of Master of Arts in 1913. She began 
graduate work in 1913, attending courses in History, 
Philosophy, and Psychology under Doctors Weber, 
Turner, and Dubray. 



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